Alice in Nightmareland
by ukrazian
Summary: I don't know if it really classes as 'Horror'; it's more of a 'dark re-telling' of Alice in Wonderland. I hope you enjoy it anyway! Now with extra added content from Hyde Park, in the form of a sequel!
1. Alice in Nightmareland

Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland (unfortunately).

**Alice in Nightmareland**

"Alice, pay attention!" This was a common cry whenever a stern adult was in the same room, or even the general vicinity, of Alice Liddell. She loved to daydream wherever she was, no matter the situation, time of day or place. Fortunately, today there were no stern adults nearby; in fact, there was nobody at all nearby. Alice was splayed on the long grass in the field outside her house, gazing up at the azure sky and forming a constant, ever-changing story as she watched her 'cloud characters' take their huge blue stage. There was a cat cloud, a rabbit cloud, and a cloud that looked like nothing much in particular; Alice liked to believe that it was in the shape of a queen, and she could almost make out the spikes of her crown. It was a summer day, and luckily for Alice she had no classes today; no classes in which to be scolded whilst she imagined instead of applied her brain to the hard physical facts of real life. Alice herself was mature for her age, or she liked to think so anyway; her ruffled yellow dress was immaculate, perfectly matching her blonde hair; and her face was composed into its usual dreamy expression as she imagined her 'cloud characters' taking on personalities all their own.

She was resting on her back in the field, waiting for her mother to summon her for tea, for she was quite hungry. 'What would be perfect', she thought, 'would be if Mother called me in and there was a great platter of cakes waiting. Some with icing, some with jam, others with cream...' And with that, she had forgotten her 'cloud characters' and was vividly picturing various confectionary delights that could be waiting for her inside the cool house. Bees buzzed lazily around, searching for rare flowers amongst the tall, swaying grass, although Alice had long since picked any wild flowers to create a chain that was now lying to one side, having occupied her attention for just long enough to be half completed. As her attention drifted back from cakes to clouds, then back again, she smiled. It was immensely comfortable here, lying in the grass with the sun warming her and the bees creating a soft, relaxing drone, with pollen drifting in the air in a thousand multi-coloured motes... All of a sudden, something interrupted her daydreams in the most forceful way possible. A thin white rabbit emerged from the grass and scrambled over her, ignoring her completely as it pelted onwards. Alice sat up curiously as the rabbit disappeared. Surely she had been imagining things, but that rabbit looked like it had been wearing a waistcoat. Not only that, a pocket-watch had been clasped in one of its front paws!

"Well, I can hardly let such a curious creature escape now, can I? At least until I have introduced myself," Alice said; she often talked to herself, even when there was an abundance of people, finding that the most stimulating conversations are often held with oneself. She climbed to her feet, and followed the white rabbit's path; it was easy to follow, as the grass shook wherever the creature passed through. "Mr. Rabbit! Oh, Mr. Rabbit! Please come back! I only want to say hello!" Alice cried after him, but the white rabbit continued his mad dash. Alice stopped in her tracks as she emerged at the edge of the field; the white rabbit was hopping up and down agitatedly in front of a huge rabbit burrow. Now that Alice had a closer look, the rabbit didn't look well at all. He was very thin, so thin in fact that every one of his bones was visible as it pressed against his skin. His mad eyes were bloodshot and his lolling tongue was as dry as a bone as he exclaimed something to himself in a high, hoarse voice.

"I'm late! I'm late! Can't rest, can't eat, can't stop, can't sleep, I'm late, I'm late, I'm so very, very, very, very late!" With that one last agonised cry, he shoved his pocket-watch into his waistcoat and leapt headfirst down the rabbit-hole.

"Late? How late can a rabbit be if he can't eat or sleep, the poor thing? In fact, what can a rabbit be late for at all? This is all very odd... I should really go back to the house and forget the whole silly thing. But I just can't go back, not without finding out what poor old Mr. Rabbit is late for... Oh dear. This is such a dilemma," she said, hoping that the word 'dilemma' meant what she thought it did, for if so it made her sound very clever indeed for her age. "Well, I suppose I could follow him for a while. If he gets away, I can always come back in time for dinner, after all. Watch your head, Mr. Rabbit! I'm coming down shortly!" she called down the rabbit-hole, thinking it would be the polite thing to do in the circumstances, and began to crawl down the burrow on her hands and knees. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the ground gave way beneath her, and she toppled forwards into nothingness.

Fortunately, after a few seconds of tumbling, Alice's dress billowed out like a parachute beneath her, slowing her descent and allowing her to examine the curiosities that surrounded her. The tunnel was lit up somehow, but Alice couldn't see the means of illumination anywhere. What she could see were dozens and dozens of clocks. Many different kinds were floating around her, embedded in the tunnel wall or even rising upwards past her. She looked closely at a pocket-watch, similar to the white rabbit's, that rose up close by; it was broken, and the time was fixed at six o'clock. The glass covering its face was cracked, although not completely broken, and out of the back spilled cogs, springs and all manner of mechanical pieces that Alice had no experience of. As the pocket-watch rose out of sight, her attention switched to a huge and ornate grandfather clock, sticking out of the wall like an oddly-shaped tree root. A sharp-bladed axe was buried it its side, although the pendulum still swung back and forth. A half-destroyed cuckoo-clock fell past her, the small wooden bird inside having had a metal nail hammered through it, and it managed one 'Cuckoo' before it exploded completely. Chips of wood and tiny clockwork pieces hovered around Alice in a sparkling, multi-coloured rain, and she looked around in wonder, extending her hand to grab the wooden bird. However, when her hand was within an inch of it, it spread its tiny wings and fluttered away.

Alice realised, as she looked more closely at the clocks, that all of them seemed to be heralding six o'clock. "Surely that can't be the time already," she said to herself, "Dinner would have come and gone! And I would have missed out on all of those lovely cakes..." She lamented her situation for a moment, forgetting completely about the many clocks that still surrounded her before her feet touched solid ground again. She stepped forwards and shook tiny cogs out of her hair, smoothing her dress as if it had merely been an interesting trip that one could make any day of the week. "Now, where am I now? I've come down so far into the earth, that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I were to have come out the other side! Australia, I believe, is on the opposite side of the world... But why am I not walking upside-down? Oh, this is so confusing. I suppose I'd better find Mr. Rabbit and ask him where I am. Ah, there he is now!" she said excitedly, but she only got a glimpse of the rabbit before he disappeared beyond a small door in the opposite wall.

She ran over to the door, her polished shoes clacking on the marble floor, and tried the handle; it was locked, however. "Oh no! However shall I reach Mr. Rabbit now? Perhaps I should look around for a key," She examined her surroundings in the hope of spotting some way of opening the door. She was in a huge, cavernous room made completely of black and white swirled marble. In the high roof, she could just make out a sparkling chandelier that cast shimmering white light over the proceedings. Directly in front of her was an elegant little table made solely out of glass. How she hadn't noticed it before was anybody's guess. "I suppose I was just focused on Mr. Rabbit," she assured herself, before taking a closer look at the table. On it was a small glass bottle full of a sunshine-yellow liquid that appeared to swirl and splash of its own accord inside the glass. There was a note of some sort attached around the bottle's neck, but she hardly cared about this when there was the spectacle inside the bottle itself. She bent down so her face was inches from the bottle, watching the liquid frolic. A smile spread across her face as she shook her head in wonderment. "Curiouser and curiouser," she muttered to herself, then grabbed the bottle. "Well, I simply must try some. It looks delicious, after all, and I have had nothing to eat since lunch time. If it really is six o'clock, and I have missed dinner, then I'm sure whoever lives here won't mind if I take a tiny sip," She tilted back the bottle and let some of the liquid drop onto her tongue.

She cried out in pain as it burned her mouth, splashing around inside and scalding her cheeks, her tongue, her throat... She managed to spit it onto the floor and sat down, gasping with pain, and tears gathered in her eyes. She grabbed the note with trembling hands and turned it over. On the other side was the word 'Poison'. She dropped the bottle and gave a little shriek. "Oh, what would mother say if she knew I had drunk from a bottle without checking if it were marked 'Poison' or not? She always told me, something marked 'Poison' is certain to disagree with you, sooner or later," she felt tears roll down her cheeks as she favoured her burned mouth, but shook her head violently. "Come now! Crying won't help anybody! I should merely..." For once, Alice felt words fail her. The bottle marked 'Poison' had finally disagreed with her, and intensely so; she felt her arms and legs lengthen, her head swell up like a balloon, and her torso ripple and shake violently as it expanded. Her bones contracted and expanded, making her one moment tiny and the next gigantic. She shuddered and shook as her size increased and decreased horribly, shutting her eyes in pain and terror, before she felt it stop. Her eyes slowly opened as she looked around, dreading what she would see.

She was enormous; so enormous, in fact, that the cavernous room was no longer cavernous to her. She was forced into a sitting position as she looked around uncomprehendingly, trying to duck beneath the crystal chandelier that was now inches above her head. She laid down her right hand to the floor to steady herself, and immediately pulled it back up with a cry of pain; she had inadvertently placed it down on the now-miniscule glass table, which had smashed into a thousand tiny pieces, cutting her palm. She examined her bleeding hand and almost burst into tears again as drops of scarlet blood splashed to the marble floor. "How on earth am I going to get through the door now? I wasn't small enough before, and I'm certainly not now. Will I be forced to stay here forever, and starve to death like a prisoner? What would mother and father say if they knew? They would be like small dolls to me now, I would guess..." And as Alice went off on this tangent, imagining what life would be like for a giant, she didn't notice that her cut hand continued to seep blood over the floor. Suddenly, she felt something bump against her foot, and she looked down with horror. There was a tiny cake floating in a sea of horrible red, a sea that stemmed from her very own veins. Her dress was stained with it as it swirled around her, giving off a sickly, metallic stench. "Well, nothing can surely make things worse. If I grow bigger, I shall be able to break free. If I grow smaller, I can go through the door," she said resolvedly to herself, and picked up the tiny cake. It was dotted with raisins that spelled out 'Eat Me'. "I most certainly will, with such a kind invitation," she said, and dignifiedly popped it into her mouth.

As she chewed, her eyes widened with horror and she gagged, spitting out what she could, but she was unable to stop herself swallowing at least some of it. It was the most disgusting, rancid, vile cake she had ever tasted in her life. It had crumbled into rotting pieces as soon as it entered her mouth, pieces that wriggled and squirmed like maggots as the overpoweringly foul taste washed over her. "Oh dear... Now what?" she said, as she felt the familiar warping of her body that signalled an imminent change. She shut her eyes as she grew smaller, her bones and organs seemingly fighting for position within her diminished frame, then she grew larger for a second, before shrinking drastically again. She almost passed out from the pain this time, but when she opened her eyes she was floating. She thrashed and writhed for a second, convinced she was going to drown, and then remembered the swimming lessons she had been taught. The now-huge pool of blood was like a deep, wide lake to her now, and as she did her best to breast-stroke through its thickness she began to feel light-headed from the sickly vapours that rose from it. She felt her energy and strength sap away from her, and eventually gave up and floated on her back, completely soaked in scarlet. 'I can go no further,' she thought to herself, not even having the ever-present energy to open her mouth. 'I shall float here forever. Oh, I wish I hadn't cut myself...' Her thoughts were ruptured as something larger than her bumped into her from the side. She trod 'water' for a second as she turned herself to look at the newcomer, but instantly recoiled.

A dead rat was floating there, fortunately with its back to her so she couldn't stare into its lifeless eyes. Its thick, rope-like tail dangled out behind it, and she used it to pull herself onto it like a life-raft. 'At least now I can rest myself,' she thought as the rat began to float with the current, her on board. "Good evening, Mr. Rat. It seems that we're both in a bit of a predicament. I shall never visit Australia again, and I shall tell my classmates all about how horrible it is," she talked to the rat as if it were alive, keeping her mind off the fact that they were floating in a pool of her blood, and told the corpse all about her life. "And of course Dinah, my cat... Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, horror-struck at her own inconsideration, patting the rat's blood-soaked fur gently in apology. Looking around as no reply was forthcoming, she spotted something up ahead. "Oh look, Mr. Rat! Over there! Let's go and get a closer look, shall we?" Alice said, using her hands as rudimentary oars as she paddled towards this new apparition. "Why, I believe it's dry land! Well, we can have a nice long rest after our time at sea, can't we?" Alice ruffled the rat's warm, sticky fur and redoubled her efforts, steering her and her grisly ship to what she hoped would be a nice beach to recuperate on.

"Perhaps they'll have deck-chairs, and donkey rides! Like when me, mother and father went on holiday one year... Oh, you would have loved it, Mr. Rat. It was such fun. Oh! I think I see something moving on the beach! Land ho!" she shouted, before whispering to the dead rat, "I believe that's the right thing to say in such a situation. I have never been on a boat before, and thus never been lost at sea like I am now... yes, there are certainly people over there!" She stood up on the rat unsteadily, waving her arms and shouting to attract their attention. There seemed to be a number of people running around a large rock, on top of which was perched a rather rotund man. As they drifted closer, Alice realised that they weren't people at all. There were ragged birds, blood-soaked rats with chipped teeth, and a vicious-looking magpie with some shred of carrion dangling from its dagger-like beak, to name but a few. Atop the rock was a huge, hatchet-beaked dodo, dressed aristocratically save for the many blood stains that spotted his rather elegant suit. At his fine belt was a small flintlock pistol, and he was waving on the creatures circling the rock with what appeared to be a conductor's baton. His beady eyes focused on Alice as she and the dead rat washed up on the shore.

"Ah! A new recruit! Well, come on, my girl, join in the fun!" he said jovially. Alice curtseyed and replied,

"Fun? What do you mean, sir?" The other animals had stopped running now, and were all staring at Alice. The dodo puffed on his pipe and looked at her as if she were insane.

"A Caucus Race, of course! We run around and around the rock until we are dry!" Alice realised that her skin and clothes were completely soaked in her own blood, and she wailed in despair.

"My favourite dress! How will I ever explain to mother?"

"Well? Are you going to join in or not?" the dodo bellowed, leaning down to get a closer look at her.

"Oh... yes, I shall join in. It does sound like fun, I suppose," Alice replied, and moved closer to the rock, so she could run around its base. A rat put up his paw silently as Alice would put up her hand in a classroom.

"Yes?" the dodo said thunderously, turning to glare at the creature. The rat cleared his throat nervously before speaking.

"I suggest an amendment to the rules. Should we catch her, we can eat her. If she gets dry before we catch her, she wins," he said in a quavering voice that belied the seriousness of what he proposed. The dodo was silent for a second, looking from the creatures to Alice, whilst Alice herself was stunned into silence by the very idea.

"Yes, yes, why not? We have all had a long day, after all," the dodo finally said importantly.

"But sir, wait! I should not want to compete in a race in which I may get eaten! Besides, I am barely a mouthful," she said, and was dangerously close to daydreaming again before the dodo interrupted.

"Well, you said you would compete! Verbal contract, my girl! Anyway, you would not wish to disappoint these fine young creatures, would you?" he said, indicating the Caucus racers, who suddenly looked forlorn.

"Of course not," Alice said before she could stop herself, and the dodo clapped his hands together.

"Very good! Well, we shall start the race in three..." he began, pulling his pistol out to signal the start of the race, but the rat had his hand in the air again. "No time for more amendments!" the dodo barked, and shot the rat dead with a single bullet and a flash of smoke. "Begin!" the dodo cried through the smoke, and Alice started to run, hearing the various hungry animals charge in behind her, intent on catching her and ripping her to shreds. Her heavy, blood-soaked dress and tired limbs made the race very difficult indeed, as well as the carcass of the shot rat, which had been left in the way as a hurdle for the racers. She was sweating after a single lap, and although she felt she couldn't take another step, she managed to force herself onwards, the jaws and beaks of the eager racers snapping at her heels. It was like a terrible nightmare which she could never escape, as she ran around the rock again and again and again and again... Suddenly, she crashed into the dodo, who was standing in the way pompously. Alice forgot her manners and cried,

"Move! They'll catch me!" She pointed behind her desperately, then crouched down, her hands over her head as she expected to be torn apart any second. The dodo grabbed her arm and lifted her back up tenderly.

"There there, my child... You won the race! Look, you're all nice and dry now..." the dodo said kindly, and Alice looked down at herself. Her hair, her skin and her dress were covered in dried and congealed blood. The Caucus racers were crowded around her, patting her back and shaking her hands as if they were all part of a team. Alice breathed deeply as she recovered, wiping tears and dried blood from her face as the dodo formally announced it to the group; "The winner of today's Caucus Race is..." Suddenly, he realised he didn't know her name, and turned back to look at her. He grabbed her chin and lifted her head sharply to stare into her eyes, although his face was still kindly. "What is your name, dear?"

"I'm Alice... Alice Liddell..." she said weakly, coughing and massaging her throat as he released her.

"The winner is named Alice... Alice Liddell! Now, who has the prize for the winner?" the dodo looked around expectantly, then his gaze fell back on Alice. "Ah! You must have the prizes, since nobody else has announced themselves!" he said.

"I have no prizes... I am the winner, after all..." Alice replied, not caring to watch her words as she felt quite annoyed and distressed after such a potentially brutal 'game'.

"Everyone's a winner!" the dodo said in response, and hopped back onto the rock. "Now, we must have another Caucus Race. The winner must buy the prizes for this game's winner; in other words, everybody," he announced to the group in general, and waved his conductor's baton. Alice shook her head and walked away, and when she felt confident that everyone else was too consumed in the new race she broke into a run, eager to get away. It wasn't long at all before she reached a small, neat little house, which was perfect for one of her small size.

"I wonder who lives in this charming little house?" Alice said nervously, doing her best to keep her mind off the Caucus Race, and she stepped forwards to read the sign outside. It read: 'This house is, by Royal Decree, under the ownership of Mr. W. Rabbit.' "Mr. W. Rabbit? It must be the very same one I'm trying to find! What wonderful luck, to have stumbled upon his very own house!" she said, thrilled, and walked up the garden path excitedly. Suddenly, the front door snapped open, and who should emerge but Mr. Rabbit himself! He stopped in front of Alice, looking even thinner and gaunter close up, and looked her up and down, trembling with either rage or fear.

"You!" he said in his hoarse voice. "Get my gloves immediately!" his bulging, bloodshot eyes followed her all the way back to the house as she found herself unable to disobey. She closed the door behind her and examined the cottage from the inside with interest. Everything seemed to either have fur or have long, rabbit-like ears. There were two small, fluffy armchairs next to a large, blazing fireplace, which had a bronze fire-guard moulded into the shape of two rabbits, back-to-back. The grandfather clock, which tolled incessantly despite showing no particular time, was decorated with two wooden ears atop it, and the pendulum was shaped like a rabbit's head.

"Now," she said to herself as she crept forwards. "Where would a rabbit keep his gloves?" She tried to remember whether she had come across this problem before, and had almost forgotten why she was there when she spotted a small tray of delicious-looking cakes. Her stomach rumbled greedily as she looked at it. Mr. Rabbit looked very impatient and angry, but surely he wouldn't begrudge her one little cake? She took the smallest one she could find, and nibbled it delicately as she examined a white chest of drawers. She dropped the cake on the floor as she knelt down, wracked with pain. Her bones, muscles and skin were all closing in oppressively on one another, before bursting outwards again, taking up a larger space than before. In short, she was changing drastically in size again.

First she was an inch high compared to the chest of drawers, then a second later she towered above it, all the time feeling as though she was being mixed around and melted inside, before becoming solid and whole again. "Not again," she whimpered, her eyes firmly closed as she felt herself stop changing. What had happened this time? Was she gigantic, or even tinier? Her eyes opened a crack and she groaned. The rabbit's house was ruined, as she now took up the entire room, having smashed everything else aside in her uncontrolled size-changes. Her head even extended up to the second floor, having smashed a hole in the ceiling, and she gazed fearfully out of the window. "How on earth shall I escape this time?" she thought to herself. Suddenly, she heard the door open, and heard a little shriek of terror. She was in no position to look, but she knew that the rabbit had entered and seen her enormous form stuffed into his now-insignificant cottage.

"Monster!" came a cry that sounded almost comically high-pitched to the huge Alice, and she looked out of the window close by to see Mr. Rabbit hurtling down the garden path, before turning left and disappearing from view.

"Well, where can he be going? To get some help, I hope. I can hardly live out my days stuck in a house, after all!" she said to herself. Several minutes later, the white rabbit had returned, and this time somebody was with him; a burly reptilian creature dressed in soot-stained clothes, who was swigging a huge bottle of brandy. His loud, drawling voice carried up to the window that Alice looked out of.

"So, you need help with a monster, do ya? Well, that's what I'm 'ere for, I s'pose," he took a long draught from his bottle and wiped his lips as the white rabbit scuttled behind him.

"Yes, please help me, Bill, please! It's such a huge and hideous beast, that I cannot hope to drive it off alone!" he said nervously.

"Humph! Huge and hideous? That's rather a horrible thing to say to anybody, even a monster. Which, of course, I am not!" Alice reminded herself, then listened in on the conversation again.

"So... so you'll do it, then? You'll go down the chimney, and flush out the beast?" the rabbit pleaded.

"Keep your ears on, I said I'd do it!" Bill the lizard snarled, taking another glug of brandy. "Get me a ladder," he grunted, and for a few seconds there was silence. Then Alice saw a ladder being rested against the wall, right in front of her window, so Bill could climb onto the roof. There was more silence, save for grunting and the creaking of the ladder, and suddenly Bill popped up in the window, taking a closer look at Alice. On closer inspection, his eyes were unfocused, and he reeked of alcohol. Some brandy even dripped down his scaly chin as he took his longest draught yet, still fixing Alice with his wild gaze. "It's an ugly one, alrigh'. But nothin' I can' handle," he slurred, before crawling further up the ladder. His slack tail followed behind, bouncing off the rungs until it disappeared from view.

"Oh dear," Alice said, "I wonder what exactly that horrible creature has got planned," Her question was answered a few seconds later as Bill landed in the fire-place downstairs, giving rise to a choking cloud of soot that made Alice cough. Before the lizard could say another word, however, there was an almighty explosion, and Alice felt a nasty burn rise up on her leg as the fire escaped its confines greedily. The whole house shook, and Bill the lizard shot out of the chimney as if he had been launched by a cannon, alive or dead it was impossible to say. His very own brandy had been the cause of his impromptu exit, as it had burst into flames and exploded the moment the lizard had landed.

"Bill!" the rabbit cried as he watched the lizard sail away into the air.

"Poor Bill," Alice said sympathetically, before remembering what Bill had planned for her. "Well, he quite deserves it! Now, how am I going to get out of here?"

"Now how will I get rid of the monster?" the rabbit muttered distractedly, and in pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead, he dislodged his pocket watch and glanced at it. He shrieked and leapt into the air. "I'm late! I'm very late! Must go, must run, goodbye, good luck, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" he cried, and sped off again, leaving Alice alone once more. She sighed and wriggled uncomfortably as the pain on her leg intensified. It was then that she noticed, in a small box on Mr. Rabbit's bedside table, a cake. A small, round cake stuffed with cream and inscribed with raisins that spelled out 'Eat Me'.

"Oh dear! Not another one! And I can't very well ignore it when it's so close by... Well, there is a bright side, I suppose. I cannot possibly get any larger, so it will have to make me smaller!" With much painful shifts and aching twists, she managed to manoeuvre her arm into the top floor after pulling her head down. Her huge hand scrambled for the cake, and after several failed lunges she picked the soft pastry up between two of her massive fingers. She withdrew her hand and held the cake in front of her mouth with trepidation. "Oh, well... Hopefully this will be the last of them," she sighed, and popped it between her lips. It was quite as disgusting as the first, and wriggled, crunched and crumbled just as badly as if possessed by cancerous worms. However, this time she managed to force the whole thing down, and after holding back a wave of bile, she sat awkwardly in anticipation. For a moment it seemed as if the cake had been but a cake; then the all-too-familiar pains began again. Several minutes later, the longest and most painful transformation yet had been completed, and Alice was sprawled on the floor, panting in agony. It felt as if her bones had been crushed against each other as she shrank, and her organs had been squashed into one grotesque globule of pain that throbbed within her. She couldn't stop herself retching several times before coming back into focus. She sat up and groaned, clutching her painful head as she spat out some bitter bile.

Looking around, she realised that she was smaller than ever; barely three inches tall. It was hard to believe that the monumental wreckage in the white rabbit's house had been caused by her, and she picked her way over splinters as she did her best to navigate her way to the fortunately open door. It took her some time to make her way through the desecrated room and the many obstacles it presented to one so small, but she eventually managed to escape and she pattered down the lane after the rabbit, following the direction he had taken and hoping that he had not gotten too far ahead. The smooth dirt road quickly petered out, and Alice was faced with a wall of grass that now towered over her, like thousands of thin green trees. "I don't think I shall enjoy being three inches tall," she remarked to herself sadly as she pushed aside blade after blade of grass, forging her way through like an explorer in the jungle. As she pushed further and further on, stopping for rests often due to the tiring nature of her trek, she spotted clouds of smoke swirling above her.

They were shimmering many different colours, and often changed shape. Why, there was an Alice-shaped cloud! And she was chasing a rabbit-cloud! "How very odd," Alice said in amusement as the smoke continued to show her scenes of her adventures. "But what on earth is that cloud? It looks almost like a mushroom... but with something sitting on top of it! And look, I'm standing right next to it! I must find out where these clouds are coming from..." She forgot her tiredness, her sickness and even that she was three inches tall as she pushed her way through the grass, her curiosity, as usual, getting the best of her as she followed the smoke, watching it above her to trace it back to its source. She was so focused on looking up that she crashed headlong into something spongy and soft, which knocked her to the ground. She blinked dumbly for a second before looking up; she was beneath a mushroom! Climbing quickly to her feet, she peeped over the top of it to see exactly who, or what, was waiting for her. The creature that was curled up on the head of the mushroom was long and chitinous, with huge, snapping mandibles that were twisted into a hideous grin. What seemed like thousands of legs all along its body wriggled constantly, independent of each other and creating a horrible rustling, clicking noise that set Alice's teeth on edge and made her uneasy. The huge centipede's antennae quivered madly as he bent down towards Alice, and they caressed her face as the creature's tiny eyes stared into hers. The centipede itself was horribly curled around a large and ornate hookah, and the sparkling, shifting smoke that emanated from the creature's mouth and the pipe connected to it made his armour plates glow and shimmer grotesquely.

"What have we heeeeeeere?" the centipede said in a rattling, bored voice, completely at odds with his devilish grin; or perhaps it was a grimace. Alice stepped backwards away from the questing antennae, coughing as the putrid smoke crawled down her throat.

"My name is Alice," Alice replied politely, curtseying just in case centipedes expected good manners as much as the next person.

"I do not care for names," the centipede said immediately after she had finished, blowing more smoke in her face. Her vision was peppered with multi-coloured spots as she coughed the smoke out of her lungs, feeling her throat rasp painfully as she did so.

"Well, then, why did you ask me?" Alice replied groggily, feeling as if the smoke had dulled her wits. The centipede wriggled with pleasure its entire length, an exhibition in monstrous sinuousness.

"I did _not_ ask you. I asked myself, 'What have we here?'" the creature said, relishing the fact that it had apparently outsmarted her.

"Well, I am a little girl. That's what you have here," Alice snapped back, feeling as if she was about to be sick as the horrid smoke swirled around her. The centipede noted her discomfort and wriggled again, before spewing more smoke at her.

"And what would a little girl - a very little girl, in fact – be doing here?" he hissed, drawing in close to her face and exploring it with his antennae again.

"Well, I can hardly respond to that, as I don't know where exactly 'here' is," Alice said curtly, feeling as if she had at least caught him out on that one.

"Here is here. It always has been and it always will be," the centipede countered smugly. Alice felt perception warp and twist as the smoke swirled around her again, and she struggled to keep her bearings.

"I'm afraid I must go, sir... I am following... following..." she said, and swayed on the spot as her hand slapped to her sweaty forehead. "Oh! What am I following? Where am I, indeed?" she said weakly. She was only vaguely aware of the centipede winding itself around her, its quivering antennae eternally stroking her face as if to pacify her.

"Here is here," the creature whispered, its voice high with indecent excitement, "And you shall never leave," Alice shuddered and almost went limp, but she suddenly spotted another smoke-cloud floating above... A cloud that looked like her, and the centipede that encircled her, but they were insignificant compared to a much larger cloud that approached. A huge shadow suddenly doused the scene as something monumental came towards them, making the ground shake with its footsteps. The centipede unfurled itself from Alice and twitched anxiously, and it began darting around, as if wondering whether to run and leave its prey behind or stay put and risk whatever was coming. Alice herself was sprawled on the floor, panting and trembling as the smoke's terrible effects started to wear off, oblivious to her surroundings. She managed to sit up, coughing, as the shadow moved on, and her breath caught in her throat as she gazed around blearily. A huge, polished boot was being lifted up from the clearing, attached to an equally huge leg and gigantic body; or so it seemed to Alice in her present state, anyway. The creature had seemingly not noticed Alice, as its round, bulging eyes were focused ahead, protruding from its slimy frog-face unblinkingly. The centipede had been crushed beneath the creature's boot, and Alice steered clear of its shattered remains as she leant against the mushroom's stalk. The head of the mushroom had been knocked off and split in half by the rising boot of the frog-man, and Alice gazed at the two halves closely. Etched in the pale flesh of one side in stark, spidery black letters was 'Larger'. The word on the other half was 'Smaller'.

"Surely not more size-changing antics..." Alice said weakly, clutching her head. The smoke from the dislodged hookah was making her head spin and clouded her thoughts. "Well, I must eat the 'Larger' half, for three inches is such a wretched height, especially if you happen to be me," she said, and decisively tore off a chunk of the closest mushroom half, chewing on it as hard as she could. It was tough and rubbery despite its smooth and delicate look, and several times Alice tried to swallow it but felt it expand in her throat, nearly choking her. Eventually she managed to bite it into tiny chunks, and swallowed it piece-by-piece, growing slightly larger each time. Unfortunately, this did nothing to halt the pain, which was increased due to her frequent swallowing and subsequent small growth, again and again until she had consumed it all. Luckily, when she recovered from the vertigo and groaned to herself at the drawn-out reorganisation of her body, she found herself to be as tall as before, and the centipede was but a blot on the floor. "Oh, thank goodness... I shall take this mushroom with me, I think, as it may be useful should I find myself growing or shrinking again,"

She grabbed the two mushroom halves and stuffed them in her blood-crusted pockets before looking around, eager to be away from the small clearing. In the distance, she spotted the frog-creature, which was now equal to her height; "I believe I must thank him for saving me. Besides, he may know of Mr. Rabbit and where he is headed," she said decisively. Alice was often decisive, not always to her own benefit, but now she felt she needed to be or risk sitting down and dissolving into tears at her predicament. She hurried after the frog-creature, calling out to him, but he neither stopped, turned nor gave any indication he had heard her at all. Eventually she tracked him to a small, quaint-looking house, with thick black smoke pouring from the chimney, and the sound of pots and pans clashing and a baby screeching from within. What was more, a fish-creature, dressed like a footman in the same livery as the frog-creature, was waiting outside, looking just as vacant if not more so than the frog. The frog-footman approached the fish-footman and the two stood less than a foot away in silence. They stayed like that for several minutes, ignoring even a sharp carving knife hurled from a downstairs window that nearly speared the fish-footman, and Alice had to retreat slightly so they couldn't hear her giggling. Eventually, the frog-footman spoke, in a predictably croaking voice.

"The Queen of Hearts invites the Duchess to a game of croquet," he said, then awaited the fish-footman's reply silently.

"The Duchess will be asked if she wishes to attend this game of croquet," the fish-footman responded in an oddly deep voice, before bending over into a hacking cough. The frog-footman made no move to help the fish-footman as he writhed in pain before him, and as the fish-footman straightened up, he gurgled, "You may enter," as if nothing had happened. The door swung open of its own accord, and Alice could see that the inside of it was peppered with all manner of sharp culinary instruments. The fish-footman, who entered first, had his wig knocked off by a flying saucepan, but both footmen continued as if it was completely normal.

"I can hardly let such curious creatures go into such a curious little house without finding out the whys and wherefores, can I?" Alice said to herself happily, and crept up to the door, slipping into the house and closing the door gently behind her. As she turned, she ducked with a shriek as a small axe span over her head, adding another to the collection embedded in the door. She straightened up and moved to the side so as to be out of immediate range of flying cutlery, and took in the scene timidly from under a scratched and dented table. On an armchair in the centre of the room was a broad, stout, immensely ugly woman with a hard, wrinkled face and an expression of perpetual anger. She wore elaborate ceremonial clothes and an ornate hairstyle, but one's attentions were always drawn back to that hideous and oversized head. Clutching in her claw-like hands was a baby, writhing and screaming and doing everything it could to escape, although the Duchess had a firm hand on it. In fact, as she looked balefully up at the two footmen, it was like she could neither feel its attempts to escape nor hear its constant screeching.

In the corner, bent over a stove, was a tall but incredibly thin cook, her face covered by a cowl except for her long and prominent nose. There was a huge bowl of soup swaying on the tiny oven, and crackling flames lapped at its base as the soup itself bubbled and overflowed. The air was thick with the stench of pepper, as the cook was pouring more and more into the soup; whenever she ran out, she delved into the many cabinets and cupboards around her, tossing everything else behind her in the quest for more of the overpowering seasoning. 'Well, this explains the poor fish-footman's coughing. Nobody could live in such a house for long and not develop some sort of cough!' Alice thought to herself, sneezing as the pepper wafted over to her. The fish-footman finally began to speak above the horrendous racket.

"The Queen of Hearts would like to invite the Duchess to a game of croquet," he said, not in the least bit perturbed as a mallet nearly took his head off as it sailed by.

"Let it be known by Royal Decree that I shall attend," the Duchess announced in a creaky, superior voice. 'Oh, come now! A Duchess cannot use Royal Decree, surely?' Alice thought, but then she realised that she knew little about the world's politics, and even less about the politics of this strange land. "Cook, boil them up and put them in the soup," the Duchess added, and the cook turned from her place at the stove. Her face was still shrouded in shadow, but she crept up behind the two footmen and drew out a mallet from nowhere, dealing them vicious blows to the backs of their heads. The two creatures fell silently, and the cook dragged them over to the stove, pulling out a filleting knife.

"Oh no! Now how shall the Queen know that you wish to attend her croquet game?" Alice cried, shocked at the brutal deaths of the two footmen. The Duchess looked over and spotted her, then said,

"Come out where I can see you, dear," Alice obliged, crawling out from under the table and curtseying. "Now, what was your question?" the Duchess asked, before letting off a loud sneeze.

"With both footmen dead, how will the Queen know whether you will attend the croquet game?" Alice asked politely in a quiet voice.

"I daresay she already knows," the Duchess replied condescendingly. Although this defied all of Alice's experience of logic, she held her tongue, not wanting to end up like the footmen. When the Duchess remained silent, Alice looked around for a topic of conversation. Finally she spotted a cat curled up on the table, and looked at it more intently than she would normally have, as she could feel the Duchess' eyes burning into her. The cat was very thin, but its tabby fur was fluffy and lustrous. It had very long claws that gouged lines in the wood of the table, and a great many long, sharp teeth in its smiling mouth. Its cunning yellow eyes fixed on Alice, and she almost expected it to speak, but it remained silent.

"I've never seen a cat with such a smile before," Alice said, before correcting herself. "In fact, I have never seen a cat smile at all,"

"He is a Cheshire Cat. All Cheshire Cats smile. Fact," the Duchess snapped, seemingly angered by her lack of knowledge, so she curtseyed again just to be sure. This seemed to pacify the Duchess slightly and she sat back in her chair.

"Well, I'm afraid I must be going, Your Majesty," Alice said as she ducked a soaring knife.

"Going? Well, take Pig with you. I must go and get ready to play croquet, after all. Please excuse me, Your Majesty," the Duchess leapt up, threw the wailing baby at Alice and curtseyed to her before hurrying into another room, barely avoiding a thrown pan. Alice shook her head as she struggled to contain the writhing infant.

"What perfect madness. _She_ called _me_ 'Your Majesty'! Pig... what a dreadful name for a child!" She walked out of the house as quickly as possible, and stopped by a large tree as soon as she was out of sight and earshot. Pig was still screaming and shuddering in her hands. "Oh, stop it, you foul little child!" Alice snapped, her patience waning, and to her surprise Pig fell still and silent. She sat back on a large, gnarled root and rocked the baby slowly, looking up at the sky. This really had been the most frightful day. Suddenly, she felt Pig wriggle again, and looked down at him. She screamed and dropped the baby, pressing herself up against the tree as she sought to retreat. Pig had turned into a malformed swine-like beast, still the size of a baby and wearing a bonnet, but covered with rough hair, sporting a drooling mouth full of broken and bent tusks, and two wild yellow eyes that stared up at Alice. It squealed loudly and snapped its jaws together, looking for a moment as if it was going to attack Alice, before shambling off into the undergrowth. Alice placed a hand on her chest to calm her beating heart. "Now I know... Pig was a perfectly good name for such a beast," she breathed.

"So Pig turned into a pig," a whispery voice came from above her, and she scrambled away from the tree, her heart racing again as she stifled a scream. The Cheshire Cat was perched on a branch above her, gazing down at her through slitted yellow eyes. His huge grin was still in place, and he looked no less mischievous or cunning than before.

"Oh... it's only you, Cheshire Puss," Alice said, hoping the name would please it; its grin grew wider, and she felt heartened enough to make a request. "Where do I go from here?" she asked politely.

"Well, where do you want to go?" the Cheshire Cat replied. Its fur was rippling and its tail swished back and forth, but the rest of it was tense and still. Alice thought for a moment, before sitting down with a sigh.

"I don't know. I don't know where I am, or how to leave this dreadful place," she groaned.

"This place is not so dreadful. It is merely a tree, like so many others that surround you," the Cheshire Cat pointed out.

"I meant this world. I followed Mr. Rabbit down his hole and nothing good yet has come out of it," she replied, dangerously close to tears.

"Well, perhaps a game of croquet would cheer you up!" the Cheshire Cat said, and Alice failed to notice the underlying devilish tone of its voice. She looked up and attempted a smile.

"Yes, I do so enjoy croquet. So where is this game to be held?" she asked, and the Cheshire Cat's smile grew wider as it relished its own trickery.

"There are two main routes. In that direction lives the Mad Hatter. In that direction, the March Hare. Visit either, both or neither; they're both mad," he said, his voice wavering with pleasure as his grin stretched further and further, although his eyes were still focused on Alice unblinkingly.

"Mad? But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. The Cheshire Cat wriggled on its branch as it moved closer to Alice.

"Oh, you can't help that," he whispered, "We're all mad here!" And suddenly, the Cat himself was gone, save for his orb-like eyes, within which danced the flame of lunacy, and his grin, which was opened wide as it let out high, chilling laughter. This terrible sound continued until the Cat had fully disappeared, and Alice stumbled away from the tree, shaken.

"Well... Well, I suppose the March Hare must be the one to visit. As March was several months ago, he may not be as mad as he usually would," she said to herself as she walked down the road which the Cheshire Cat had indicated, although her voice sounded so quiet in the forest that she was not fully reassured of her words. As she continued, she expected every second to hear the sounds of mad shouting, or the laughing of the Cheshire Cat, or even the harsh tones of the Duchess, but the forest was almost supernaturally silent. She rounded a corner, and gasped. Ahead was a dilapidated house that looked as if it hadn't been lived in for many years. Part of it had collapsed with age, tiles had fallen from the roof and weeds and moss clogged every visible part of it so it was barely recognisable as a dwelling.

The garden, on the other hand, was huge and well-kept, with a sweeping lawn upon which was set a long table. It was surrounded by tall hedges, so dark in hue that they looked almost black, and it was through an opening in one of these that Alice entered the garden. She crept closer to the table, and peeked out from behind a high-backed chair to examine the proceedings. The table was bedecked with hundreds of cups of tea, different coloured and shaped teapots, plates of cakes (with rotting ones set on the same plates as those most evidently new), sugar-bowls, milk jugs and place-names, although these were blank. Many of the cups and saucers were cracked or broken, and almost all of them were clogged with dust which sat on the surface of the cold, dark liquid inside. The table was surrounded by chairs of every imaginable sort, from soft, expensive armchairs to wooden school-chairs and even deck-chairs. However, only three were occupied, and the table was completely and utterly silent.

Closest to Alice was a skeletally thin man with horribly withered and pale skin, as if he had never seen the sun. His expression was glum as he stared down into a teapot, which was gripped in his left hand, although like everything else he was still and unmoving. He was dressed in dusty hatter's clothes, and a huge green top-hat was placed on his head; the card that usually showed the price was so covered with dust that Alice couldn't read it. There was a pocket-watch next to his right hand, and it was fixed on six o'clock, as Alice had come to expect. Next to the Mad Hatter was the skeleton of a large mouse-like creature, still completely whole, with its head resting on the table as if it had died there and not been disturbed since. Cobwebs were strung between its ribs and its eye sockets were black and empty. On the other side of the skeleton was whom Alice presumed to be the March Hare. His arm was raised as he held a teacup to his mouth, although the cup itself was empty. He wore a straw hat that was perched on one of his bent ears, and his eyes were wide open, yellow and criss-crossed with red veins, whilst his pupils were different sizes and frozen in position. His fur was so dusty it appeared grey, like a teddy bear that had been left in the attic for too long. "Excuse me," Alice ventured tremulously, "Could you please tell me which way I ought to go to play a game of croquet?" The Mad Hatter and the March Hare immediately started to move on her words, as if they had been a magical spell that released them. The Mad Hatter shook his head slowly to clear it, and the March Hare slammed down his teacup, shattering it.

"Croquet, you say?" the Hare said in a rasping, parched voice. He turned to the Mad Hatter. "This is no time for croquet!" The Mad Hatter nodded soberly and lifted up his watch.

"This is tea-time," he said sombrely, tapping the glass front of the clock with a thin finger.

"May I join you?" Alice asked, feeling her stomach rumble louder than ever.

"Join us for tea, my dear. I won't let you leave without having a cup of tea," the Hatter said, his face creaking into a smile as if he was trying to persuade Alice to stay rather than accepting her own self-invitation. Alice sat down in the high-backed chair next to the Hatter, puzzled but not wanting to offend her hosts. The March Hare tutted loudly.

"It's very rude to sit down without being asked," he snapped, and Alice was shocked.

"But... But you invited me to sit down!" she spluttered.

"Well, if you can't be civil then leave!" the Mad Hatter said in an outraged voice.

"Civil? I am being civil! The March Hare was the one who spoke out of turn!" Alice replied angrily.

"We shall all be civilised, or else lose our civility," the March Hare said wisely, before proffering a teapot to Alice. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Yes, that would be lovely," Alice said, picking up a teacup and extending it to accept the tea. The March Hare grabbed her teacup and pulled it out of her hand, throwing the teapot behind him so it smashed.

"Thank you so much. I do love a cup of tea, don't you?" the Hare said, sipping at the empty cup delicately. Alice wondered whether or not he was joking.

"Tea, tea... it is always time for tea," the Mad Hatter replied, this time choosing an empty teapot to pour into his cup. When he realised it had no tea inside, he laid it gently aside and lifted the cup to his lips, as if drinking from it.

"It seems I must get a cup of tea for myself," Alice muttered, and reached over to grab a new cup and teapot.

"What did you say?" the March Hare said, scandalised.

"I merely said that I must get my own cup of tea," Alice said in protest, starting to think that nothing she could say would be right. The March Hare relaxed.

"Oh, if you 'merely' said it, then that's all well and good..." he said, before sipping daintily at his empty cup again. Alice huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You speak in silly riddles," she pouted, and the Mad Hatter raised his head out of a large teapot at her words.

"Riddles? Did you say you wanted to play the riddle game?" he said, a vestige of excitement in his otherwise tired, creaking voice.

"Well, I suppose that would be fun. I quite like riddles," Alice said, sitting up and waiting for the Mad Hatter to speak. He cleared his voice and asked,

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" There was silence as Alice pondered the riddle, broken only by the March Hare tossing and smashing a milk jug.

"I'm afraid I cannot figure that one out," she eventually said politely, having exhausted all possible routes in her mind.

"Cannot figure what out?" the March Hare asked blithely.

"The riddle, of course!" Alice replied, incensed.

"What riddle? Did you say you wanted to play the riddle game?" the Mad Hatter asked happily. Alice buried her head in her hands.

"What kind of tea party is this anyway?" she groaned.

"Tea? Tea! Do you want some tea, my dear?" the March Hare exclaimed, holding up a cracked teapot.

"I'm sorry, I really must be leaving, if the time is what you say it is," Alice said, making her excuses and moving to leave.

"Leaving at tea-time? Without being excused? What bad manners," the Mad Hatter sniffed, talking conspiratorially with the dead Dormouse beside him.

"Very bad manners indeed," the March Hare agreed, turning his teacup upside-down to see that only dust sprinkled out.

"Oh, fine then. I shall stay, but not for very long. That's a very nice watch," she said, sitting back down and attempting to make conversation as she pointed at the Hatter's pocket watch.

"I disagree. It's the most vulgar, horrible watch I have ever seen in my entire life," the March Hare retorted, and Alice barely held in a scream of frustration. "It's always at six o'clock because of him," the Hare continued, pointing at the Mad Hatter and upending a sugar bowl so its contents scattered over the table.

"It's true, you know," the Hatter said gravely, tapping the watch again. At last Alice felt like they were getting somewhere. "Time is a curious fellow, who won't be rushed. I recited a poem to the Queen one day, many years ago... or perhaps hours. I can't remember either way. She said I was murdering the time with my recital, and I was escorted out of the castle by guards for my impertinence. And thus, as I murdered time, time murdered us in return. It has been tea-time for many a year now, or many an hour. Perhaps seconds. We have been seated here ever since my recital, drinking tea and... and... who are you?" the Mad hatter suddenly broke off his tale, and looked at Alice as if he had never seen her before.

"It's very rude to come uninvited to a tea party," the March Hare said, his ears quivering. Alice sighed and got to her feet, pushing her chair back into place and leaving as the Mad Hatter and March Hare called after her. As she exited via another hole in the hedge, she chanced a look back; once again, the two of them were frozen in place, utterly unmoving and still.

"That was the most cheerless tea party I have ever been to in all my life," she said, her lip trembling as she wiped her eyes, thinking about the sad story the Hatter had related. It was enough to drive anyone mad, she reasoned. As she walked away, she suddenly spotted one of the most peculiar sights yet; a tree which had a door embedded in the trunk. "Why would a tree need a door? I can't say there's much space inside to live, and all the birds and squirrels live in the branches," she said to herself, and moved closer. It was a dark brown, polished wooden door, undoubtedly fine in craftsmanship, with a brass doorknob with a heart engraved on it. "Perhaps I should just leave well alone... but I couldn't rest not knowing why such a door was in such a tree. I'll just take a little peek inside..."

She grabbed the doorknob and twisted it with a loud click, and she pulled it ever-so-gently ajar. She could only see blackness within, so opened the door further, placing her head inside to better look around. "Why, there's just darkness inside! What use is a door if it has nothing behind it, especially one on a tree trunk?" she pouted, disappointed that nothing more exciting lay within. Suddenly, an odd, ethereal wind caressed her, growing stronger and stronger, ruffling her hair and dress and pulling her into the tree, as if the door was sucking in anybody who came close. "No! Let me go!" she cried, and tried gripping the edge of the doorway, but the door slammed shut on her fingers and she was drawn within, losing consciousness quickly. When she finally woke up, her head was pounding, and every inch of her body felt like it had been beaten with a cane. Her eyes flickered open, and she screamed when she saw that an axe was raised high above, ready to swing down and behead her. Just in time, she rolled out of the way, and the axe's blade sank into the soft earth of the lawn behind her. Straightening up, she gazed around wildly, wondering who was attacking her and why.

"I told you she was alive," a familiar voice sniffed; Alice turned to see the Duchess, who was as hideous and stunted as ever, although she was smiling almost good-naturedly. 'I suppose being away from that horrible pepper must have done wonders for her mood,' Alice thought, before looking at the other woman. She was taller than the Duchess, and only slightly shorter than Alice, and she wore clothes reminiscent of those seen on the queen playing-card. Her large muscles bulged beneath her clothes, and her face was red as if it was full of boiling water. Her wobbling, wrinkled face wore an outraged expression as she tugged her axe out of the ground and turned to look at Alice, who cowered despite her larger size.

"If she is alive, there is no need to behead her. Yet," the Queen of Hearts bellowed, glaring up at Alice with popping eyes.

"Your Majesty," Alice curtseyed. "It is an honour to finally meet you," The Queen looked ameliorated at that, and shuffled her clothes into position as she smiled benevolently.

"You may survive, if you continue with such pleasantries. Just be sure to enunciate when you speak; that will minimise any misunderstanding. And subsequent beheadings," she said this last sentence thunderously, glowering at Alice again. Alice opened her mouth wide as she curtseyed again, quite alarmed at the Queen's words but not knowing what else to do.

"I have come to join in your game of croquet, if it pleases you, Your Majesty," she said, loudly and clearly. The Queen stroked the blade of her axe lovingly as she looked at Alice. There was complete silence for several seconds, and Alice feared that she had unknowingly committed some terrible offence, but the Queen suddenly roared,

"Let the game begin!" Suddenly, the place was swarming with creatures that Alice could most accurately describe as card-guards; Alice-sized playing cards with arms, legs and heads, but playing cards nonetheless. Alice looked around and saw that they were on a huge flat lawn, surrounded by immaculate black hedges and dotted with rose bushes. Several card-guards bent over so they provided the arches for the game of croquet, and an Ace pressed a hideous flamingo-like creature into Alice's hand as he passed. The bird was at least as tall as Alice, with ragged black plumage and a serrated beak. It shrieked and struggled every step of the way, digging at Alice's flesh with its claws and beak and thrashing as hard as it could. 'Oh dear,' Alice thought, 'I don't think I shall enjoy this game one little bit,'. Eventually, everyone was in position; Alice stood behind the Queen, who was for some reason the only other participant, and the Queen gripped her flamingo-creature firmly, ignoring its struggles as a card-guard laid a ball in front of her. The ball itself was hardly a ball, but a hedgehog, which curled up and presented a thick orb of iron spikes to be whacked around the field. The Queen raised her flamingo high, ready to use its head as the croquet mallet, but just as she was about to swing it down and strike the ball she shuddered to a halt.

Casting aside her flamingo with such force that she broke its neck, and kicking the ball so hard it slammed into a card-guard's face and killed him instantly, she stomped over to a rose-bush. Alice wondered what was going on, and when the Queen turned her face was so red and angry that Alice wouldn't have been surprised to see steam shooting from her ears. She was clutching what looked like a white rose, which was half-daubed in red paint, in one hand, and her axe in the other. "Who is responsible for this?" she shrieked, holding up the rose. Several card-guards stumbled forwards guiltily, and she glared at them in turn as they hung their heads. "Off with their heads!" the Queen yelled suddenly, but instead of waiting for guards to take them away, she lunged at them herself, hacking brutally with her axe until all three were sprawled on the ground, their heads piled up close by. The Queen was shaking with rage, and she dipped the rose into their blood until it was completely red before calming down. "Let the game continue," she said in a surprisingly mild voice, and once again the card-guards took their positions.

"It's your turn, my dear," the Duchess shoved Alice forwards, and she struggled to keep her 'mallet' under control as it shrieked and kicked wildly. Eventually she had it at just the right angle, and swept its head down so it collided with the hedgehog-like beast which played the part of the ball. As soon as the bird hit the hedgehog, there was a horrible crunching sound, and as the ball sped off Alice looked down to see that her bird was dead, its skull penetrated in several places by the iron spikes on the hedgehog's back. Its vital fluids were leaking all over her shoes, and the Queen stepped up beside her, wrenching it out of her hands and examining it all-too-closely.

"Well, such a breach of the rules cannot be tolerated!" she bellowed seemingly at random, tossing the dead bird aside and turning to a quivering Alice. The Queen bent down and picked up one of the card-guard's severed heads, placing it on the ground in front of Alice and handing her another flamingo. "Go on, dear," she prompted softly, and Alice swung at the head on the ground, sending it rolling towards several arches in what she believed to be a good shot. However, the card-guards providing the arches ducked, dodged and flattened themselves to the point that the head rolled through none. The Queen clapped her hands in satisfaction.

"Well, this is hardly a fair game, is it?" Alice said, forgetting her manners again, but fortunately the Queen pondered on her words rather than beheading her.

"I have an idea which will make it fairer, Your Majesty!" the Duchess interrupted, stepping forwards and whispering in the Queen's ear. The Queen looked satisfied by her suggestion, and cried,

"Everybody shall play! Thus is becomes fairer," She turned to Alice as if she had spoken words of great wisdom, and expected Alice to gasp and praise her for it.

"Oh yes, Your Majesty, very clever. Please excuse me whilst I rest by this wall; my next turn shall come much later, after all," Alice said, seeing the Queen stroke her axe-blade again, and she stumbled away from the playing-field to lean against the wall. Everything was now in chaos; everyone was wielding a flamingo-mallet, and hedgehogs and severed heads rolled all across the lawn, as even the arches moved around to take their turns. "What utter nonsense," Alice snorted as soon as the Queen was out of earshot.

"Utter nonsense is the best kind of nonsense," a familiar voice said at her ear, and she turned to see the still-grinning Cheshire Cat perched on the wall, its tail swishing.

"Utter nonsense is the _only_ kind in this silly world, it seems," Alice said, recovering from the fright quickly.

"And that is why it is the best. Are you winning the game?" the Cheshire Cat changed the subject.

"I can hardly say. I believe that whatever happens, the Queen will win, if only if she beheads everybody else. She is so dreadfully brutal and short-tempered," Alice said, and turned as the Cheshire Cat's gaze was fixed on a point over her shoulder. Standing there was the Queen, looking thunderous. Alice raised her voice as she continued her conversation with the Cheshire Cat, pretending she hadn't noticed the Queen. "Yes, that Duchess is certainly the most brutal and short-tempered person I have ever met," The Queen smiled in a satisfied way and continued on her path. Alice sighed in relief.

"What is this monstrosity?" a shrill voice suddenly sounded from Alice's right, and she turned to see that there was a short man wearing the regalia of the King of Hearts. He was staring up at the Cheshire Cat angrily.

"This is the Cheshire Cat, Your Majesty," Alice said as the Cheshire Cat stayed silent, curtseying the king politely.

"Well, it must be removed, and subsequently beheaded. Its owner too. Are you the owner of the beast?" the king replied, looking up at her beadily.

"N... No, I am just friendly with him. He belongs to the Duchess, I believe," Alice stuttered in response.

"I shall give the order immediately," the king was about to shout to the Queen, but before he could, only the Cat's head floated on the wall, its body having disappeared. Alice stifled a giggle.

"Can something truly be beheaded when there is nothing to remove the head from?" she wondered out loud. The Cat gave a whispery chuckle.

"I shall not risk it. Perhaps I shall see you at the trial. Your Majesty," he nodded mockingly at the king before disappearing, save for his cackling grin and shining eyes. The king muttered angrily to himself and seemed about to order the beheading of anything in sight before trumpets sounded across the lawn.

"Ah! The trial! Hurry, you mustn't be late!" he snapped at Alice, even though she was closer to the castle than he was. She allowed him to chivvy her on, however, and followed the swarming card-guards through a twisting, darkened maze before walking over the drawbridge into a towering fortress. Crocodiles with several sets of jaws swam in the murky, spitting waters beneath, and thousands upon thousands of heads, some long-bleached skulls and some very recently beheaded, were mounted on specially-make hooks and spikes all over the walls. 'All of the Queen's victims, I believe. But what is this trial everyone seems to be going to? I daresay I shall find out shortly,' Alice thought as she followed the card-guards down a corridor and into a massive, cavernous court-room. Seated high above on a judge's desk was the Queen of Hearts, her axe laid out across the table, and beside her sat the King. In chains in front of the judge's desk was the Knave of Hearts, a shrunken, rag-clothed boy who was panting heavily. On the king's desk was a large plate of Jam Tarts, one of which seemed to have had a bite taken out of it.

Alice sat down in one of the few available seats, and looked around to see that she was the only non-card-guard in the audience thus far. The Cheshire Cat was curled up on the lap of the Duchess, who was in the jury box, and he smiled up at Alice, who returned it nervously. The rest of the jury box was filled with the Caucus Racers, Bill the scorched and still brandy-swigging lizard and the dead and half-skinned fish- and frog-footmen. Running up the aisle towards the judge's desk was none other than Mr. Rabbit, now dressed in ceremonial heart-decorated clothes and tooting on a small bugle. He climbed up to a spot beside the king and sprawled there, panting and groaning, having finally reached his destination.

"Let the court come to order," he finally managed in a quiet, tired yet carrying voice. Everyone fell silent. "We are gathered in this, the court of courts, to examine the given testimony of one Knave of Hearts, who claims to have or have not eaten one of several Jam Tarts; the evidence of which is damning and can be seen here," the rabbit continued hoarsely, pointing at the tray of Jam Tarts. As he continued, Alice lost track of the accusations, which seemed to her to be very contradictory and confusing, and apparently the Queen of Hearts felt the same.

"Silence! Let the witnesses come forth!" she bellowed, slamming her axe down on the table. The white rabbit fell silent and stepped backwards as the first witness came out of nowhere and sat in the witness-box. It was the cook from the Duchess' kitchen, and everyone apart from Alice gave a great simultaneous sneeze as she brought the stench of pepper with her. Her face was still shrouded in a cowl, except for her nose, and her impossibly tall, thin body was crammed into the tiny witness box tightly, although she never complained once.

"Do you, Cook, swear that you and you alone, with none other, made these Jam Tarts?" the rabbit asked, and the Cook gave a single nod.

"Well, I think that's evidence enough!" shouted the King. "Off with his..." The Queen raised her axe and he fell silent, quailing under her gaze.

"What ingredients did you use when creating such cakes?" the rabbit continued, and the Cook was silent for a second before saying,

"Pepper," in a surprisingly deep and mournful voice. The King turned to the Queen.

"Surely, Your Majesty, we need no further evidence?" he pleaded, but the Queen shook her head and slammed her axe down again. The King and Alice sighed in unison, but for completely different reasons; the King was disappointed with the Queen's verdict, and Alice was annoyed at how ridiculous the trial was becoming.

"Let the next witnesses come forth! The Griffon and the Mock Turtle!" the Queen shouted imperiously. There was uneasy silence in the courtroom for a moment before the King spoke up.

"But Your Majesty... you boiled them alive to make soup just days ago!" he whispered, and Alice tutted. 'How could she forget such a dreadful thing?' she asked herself disapprovingly. The Queen thought for a moment, then smiled.

"Ah yes. And a very nice soup it was too. Let the Cook leave, or I shall boil her alive too," she said casually, and Cook unfolded herself from the witness stand and ran full-pelt from the courtroom, causing everyone to sneeze again as she passed. The next two witnesses came forth; the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, holding the Dormouse's skeleton between them as they sat quite comfortably beside one another in the witness stand. "What do you know about this monumental injustice?" the Queen asked them, her eyes ablaze and face red.

"What monumental injustice?" the March Hare said carelessly, and Alice winced. 'They should watch their words when faced with such a person,' she thought, and the Queen was of the same opinion as she trembled with fury.

"The Knave of Hearts, who ate the tarts!" she bellowed, slamming her axe onto the table.

"If you already know the injustice, why do you need witnesses?" the Mad Hatter said in his creaky old voice, sipping from an empty, cracked cup that he drew from nowhere.

"Furthermore, why do you need a trial?" the March Hare continued, smashing a teapot on the floor close by so cold tea trickled over the floor. 'They have a good point. For once, I might add,' Alice thought, and gazed up at the Queen to see her reaction. The Queen's face was quite expressionless, and she sat in a dignified pose in her seat, arranging her clothes daintily. Then she said, quite calmly,

"Boil them both alive," Card-guards rushed forwards as Alice covered her mouth, stifling a gasp of horror. They beat the two witnesses – and even the skeleton – with their spear-hafts viciously, until they were covered with bruises and welts, and then they clapped them in rusty, chafing irons before dragging them unceremoniously away. As they left, the Queen tosses her axe, and it sliced through a card-guard before embedding itself in the Hatter's hat.

"What a monstrous woman she is! Why, somebody needs to teach her a lesson!" Alice said, before realising she had inadvertently shouted to the whole courtroom. There was deadly silence as the Queen and Alice's gazes met from their separated positions. Then the Queen turned to the jury.

"Verdict for the Knave of Hearts?"

"Guilty!" shouted Bill the lizard in a slurred voice, and the Queen wrenched a nearby card-guard's spear out of his hands before tossing it down and impaling the Knave, still focused on Alice.

"Now we begin a new trial. The verdict: death for the girl!" she suddenly bellowed, her face as scarlet as ever and her eyes wilder.

"You can't begin a trial with the verdict!" Alice replied angrily, standing up from her seat, hands on hips.

"I can do anything I want to! I am the Queen!" the Queen yelled, standing up as well and stamping her feet with rage.

"You are a pompous, brutal old windbag who doesn't deserve the position!" Alice retorted, and crammed the mushroom pieces into her mouth, chewing fiercely. As she swallowed it piece-by-piece, she felt her body twist, expand, contract and writhe within itself as she shot towards the ceiling. After half a minute of agonising, eye-watering agony, she was like a giant compared to the rest of the courtroom.

"Kill her! Off with her head!" the Queen shrieked, pulling a new axe from her belt and hacking at anyone who was close by in her mounting fury. The card-guards moved forwards in perfect ranks, some hurling spears (which were no more than splinters to Alice now) and some charging her legs, chopping and stabbing at her ankles. Alice cried out in pain as the assault continued, card-guards flooding around her with ropes and eventually making her topple over, shortly before swarming all over her, hacking and stabbing... Alice let out a great shriek of terror and rose up, still thrashing with her arms and legs to beat off the now-invisible attackers. For a moment, she wondered where she was; the grass seemed to swarm with card-guards, centipedes and axes before fading away. Alice wiped the tears of utter terror from her face, trembling as she stared at the sky. It was still bright, and still painted with clouds, although now Alice found no comfort in their twisting shapes. Dinah, her ever-faithful cat, was lying curled-up on her legs, and Alice shook her head to clear it of the grin of the Cheshire Cat, which seemed superimposed over her own cat's face.

"Oh Dinah... Oh what a terrible, terrible nightmare..." she said falteringly, snuggling her face into Dinah's soft fur as the cat mewed uncomprehendingly.

"Alice! Where have you been, Alice? It's six o'clock, time for your tea! My, what a long sleep you must have had," her mother suddenly appeared over her, smiling fondly and beckoning her to follow. Alice jumped up, Dinah in her arms, and sped away, still sobbing. She knew now that her Nightmareland had not been real; that the rustling of the card-guards was the rustling of the grass, that the crawling les of the centipede had been an insect that had landed on her, that the Queen's unearthly bellowing had been her mother's soft calls. But she also knew that despite this, despite knowing that Nightmareland was not real, she was not soaked in her own blood, and she was not being attacked by hundreds of tiny enemies, that she would never, ever sleep soundly again.

**The End**

Thank you for reading 'Alice in Nightmareland'. I hope you enjoyed it despite its short length. Thank you also to anybody who reviews this story, be they good or bad comments. If you liked this, check out the next chapter: a similar version of Through the Looking Glass written by a friend of mine as a sequel.


	2. Through a Shattered Looking Glass

Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland (unfortunately).

A/N: Hi there. This is not your regular broadcaster. This is Hyde Park – someone too lazy to create their own account. I thought I'd put up this story I wrote as a sequel to 'Alice in Nightmareland', and with the original author's agreement I typed up this. It continues and develops some of the themes in the first instalment. We sort of collaborated, but not that much. Anyway, this story contains a lot of bloodshed, disturbing scenes and sporadic yuri (lesbianism to those uninitiated with anime). If any of that puts you off, you are now forewarned. Still with me? Good. I imagined Alice as Hikari from Strawberry Panic! for most of this (just Google her if you have never seen the series and you want the Complete Alice Experience™). To get a better idea of what the Jabberwock looks like, the first few pics on Google Images are what I based it on. Now, read on and hopefully you'll enjoy it.

**Through a Shattered Looking-Glass**

It was with a smothered shriek that Alice snapped back into wakefulness, her heart throbbing violently in her chest and her limbs struggling against her oppressive blankets for a second before she realised where she was. The nightmares had come again last night, after all these years... It had been close to seven years since she had first visited her 'Nightmareland', a place of surreal horror that had shaken her to her very core. The nightmares had been severe at first, and no treatment had helped her sleep; but, as with most things, they didn't last forever, and she had slept with a semblance of peace for the last few years. Now, just when she believed herself beyond the past's cruel grip, the memories were back, and growing in intensity with each passing night. Tonight she had dreamed of the hookah-smoking centipede that had blurred her mind with its sickening vapours and almost devoured her alive; her bedcovers had become the chitinous body of the beast, winding around her, steadily constricting...

She was trembling all over, and an ice-cold sweat drenched her skin like dew. It was still night-time, judging by the almost impenetrable darkness in her room; her clock was lying on the floor, its face shattered and hands snapped, so she had no idea what time it was. She sighed as she looked down at it; she must have swept it off her bedside table as she thrashed around in the throes of her nightmare, and now it was just as broken as she felt. Slowly she got out of bed, unwilling to fall asleep again, and she bent down to pick up the fallen timepiece; in the darkness, however, she cut her finger on the glass, and gasped with pain, withdrawing it to her mouth to suck at the wound. Feeling all of her frustration and hopelessness peak in that second, she snatched up the clock angrily, tossing it blindly across the room with a little scream of rage. She was sick of the nightmares, of the memories of that day, sick of everything... She heard a quiet mew from close by, and looked to the end of the bed; there, cowering amongst specks of powdered glass, was a black kitten, whom Dinah had given birth to recently.

"Don't worry, kitten," she said, somewhat impatiently, and slid across the bed to stroke its soft fur. When it was curled up in her arms, purring softly as she caressed it absent-mindedly, she looked around the room with a listless air. It was with some surprise, and a twinge of annoyance, that she saw that the clock she had thrown had impacted with her wall mirror, a large and quite beautiful piece, now marred by a spider-web of cracks and blank spots where shards had fallen loose. "Oh no... not my mirror, too," she said, rising up shakily and seeing that several of its glassy fragments were scattered on the floor; some had even made it to the end of the bed, where the kitten had been resting. Stumbling over to the mirror, wincing as glass peppered her pale bare feet, she reached up with one hand to touch its broken surface, gazing hopelessly at her cracked other self inside the shattered looking-glass. By the light of the moon filtering through her curtains she could see her wide, scared eyes, her pale face, her straggly blonde hair, and her quivering outstretched arm, the fingers so white but the blood so black.

She stroked the face of her reflection sadly, leaving a smear of blood on the fractured glass. "I wonder if you feel any better than I do," she wondered aloud, sighing again as the kitten in her arms hissed unexpectedly. "Kitten? What's wrong?" she asked, and looked down into the crook of her arm to see the cat's fur on end, its back arched and teeth bared as it glared at the mirror. Her forehead creasing slightly with a frown, she followed its gaze, and saw that her reflection was quite expressionless, not at all in keeping with her own expression. Coupled with this, her arms were not crossed like the real Alice's; in one hand, she held a strangled black kitten by the neck, and the other was pressed up to the blood Alice had left there seconds before.

Gasping and staggering backwards with horror, Alice couldn't tear her eyes away from her reflection's dead eyes, and her expression of complete and emotionless calm. Her mouth moved softly, but Alice could hear no sounds. Setting the kitten on her bed with shaking hands, she approached the looking-glass with trepidation, inexorably drawn towards her reflection like a doomed moth towards a burning flame. Her opposite was still mouthing soundlessly, unblinking and unfeeling, and Alice pressed her ear to the glass as if hypnotised to try and catch whatever words the other-girl was muttering. Closing her eyes and focusing, she calmed her quickened breathing, the only sound in the room her purring cat; in a second, even that was gone. The looking-glass seemed to melt under her fingers as she pressed up against it, ripples spreading across it like a disturbed pool, and there was a moment of immersion in which she feared she might drown in the swirling darkness. She opened her mouth to cry out, but couldn't utter a sound, and her thrashing limbs felt as though they struggled against thick treacle. Before she could try to scream for help again, she broke free of the consuming darkness, and with a thump she fell to the floor.

'What... what happened...?' she thought to herself with a whimper, her eyes closed and full of uncomprehending tears, her whole body wracked with fear. When nothing intruded on her cowering for several more seconds, she opened her eyes a fraction, and then fully as she realised what she was looking at. Sprawled on the carpet next to her was her beloved kitten, its black fur glossy in the moonlight, its wide green eyes glassy and dead, its neck wrung. Crying out in fear and revulsion she backed away, and quickly realised something else; she was little more than an inch or two tall. She had suffered this experience before, once or twice, and had found it most disconcerting, not to mention hazardous. She gulped with fear and realisation; she was _there_ again. Her Nightmareland. It was the only explanation.

She huddled up against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, and gazed around the dark room nervously. Nothing seemed to be much changed, at least; it was ordered in much the same way as her real bedroom was, complete with the smashed clock by her bed. Bizarrely heartened by this fact, she got up, and began wading through the short fibres of the lush carpet, its natural red stained black the same as her blood in the prevailing night-time. The shards of her mirror were like gigantic swords, thin but razor-edged, littering the landscape and reflecting the moon in pale flashes whenever she got close. Before she could get even a quarter across the room, however, she stopped. There was a furious clashing and clattering coming from close by, like pieces of metal viciously crashing against each other. She hesitated; what could it be? It seemed to be coming from the table-top close by. Curiosity gnawed at her, as it had done since she was very young; a persistent nagging in the back of her mind that burned to know what exactly was causing that strange noise, and which wouldn't let her sleep at night without finding out.

She listened to the distant cacophony for a few more seconds, sidling towards the table in a non-committal manner, trying to make up her mind; but abruptly, out of the blue, it was made up for her. Something tumbled off the edge of the table with a high-pitched shriek that made her heart leap with terror, landing with a meaty thump close, and with a gasp she ran over to see who had fallen, and whether they were alright; caution was forgotten in a trice. As she approached, she realised it was a polished metal chess-piece, intricately detailed and face-down, and it was twitching painfully. "Are... are you quite alright?" Alice asked, her heart in her mouth, and she bent down to help the chess-piece up; however, with a violent twitch that made Alice withdraw her hand, it righted itself, and turned to face the blonde-haired girl. She stumbled backwards, covering her mouth, as a well-detailed knight stood before her, its whiteness stained with the dark red of blood, its insane eyes staring from the eye-holes of its horse-head helmet. A mace trailed from its gauntleted hands, likewise soaked in blood, and it was clear from its expression that it was weighing up whether she was a friend or enemy. "M-My name is Alice," she said quite clearly, eager to dissuade its attack. "W-What's your name, sir?"

"Enemy sighted!" a shrill bellow came from above, and both girl and chess piece looked up to the tabletop; looking over the edge were three red pieces, stained with white blood, their weapons pointing down towards the white knight. With a hiss of anger, the knight peeled away from Alice, and screeching an unidentifiable oath he grabbed the table leg, shinning up as though climbing a smooth-trunked tree, his spiked ball swinging madly from its chain as he sped back into the battle. A tiny wooden spear took him in the shoulder as he climbed, but he ignored it; on reaching the top, he ripped it out and impaled its original owner before smashing the skull of another with his bloodthirsty mace; the red slurry of liquid spattered down onto Alice, and she recoiled with a cry of disgust. With a last look of despair up to the top of the table, upon which the battle was apparently still in full flow, she realised that she no longer wanted to see what was going on.

Shaking her head at the horrible carnage, she began to make her way towards the door, for all she could think of was to escape the scene of battle as quickly as possible. As she struggled onwards, the sounds of fighting and dying eventually receding behind her, she realised that a book had been knocked off her shelf in her immediate path; it was splayed open close by, its pages torn slightly and spattered with blood of both colours, its cover bent. Moving closer curiously, frowning at which book of hers had been mistreated, she saw that it was a compendium of poetry; and, on further inspection, it was no book she had ever read, much less owned. The pages open in front of her detailed an intricately-illustrated piece entitled 'Jabberwocky'; the fine line drawing depicted a monster of such vulgarity that she couldn't take her eyes off it.

Tall, and with spreading wings, it seemed to be little more than a living collection of nature's most hideous traits; its long arms ended in thick, armoured fingers, themselves tipped with savage claws the size of kitchen knives, and its long, well-muscled neck was tipped by a head which was no more than a sphincter-maw of fangs, crested with two squinting eyes which seemed to gleam with malevolence, and dilated nostrils that appeared to Alice to be sniffing out its unfortunate quarry. Its long, whip-like tail was lined with iron-hard spikes, and two quivering barbels dangled from its cheeks, as if sensing that she was watching it. The drawing was so realistic, and yet so unacceptably repulsive and surreal, that she tore herself away from it with a horrified shudder, some primal part of her scared that it would leap out of the page to snatch her. She couldn't bring herself to read the poem itself; the few words she picked up by accident seemed not to be English, anyway. 'If it is,' she thought to herself, 'I have not been taught anything like it,'.

Stumbling away from the book, she focused on escape in the form of the door ahead, which was thankfully ajar; silence now reigned, which meant that either she had gotten away from the horrible battle, or that all of the soldiers were dead or dying. Her eyes and ears alert for danger after her experience with the mace-wielding knight, Alice nevertheless failed to realise that she was being stalked.

A shadow lurked from under her bed, its glowing eyes surveying her through the darkness as if it were clear as day. Silently, the shadow moved nearer, crouching behind objects that littered the carpeted floor, its footfalls muffled by the fibres. Closer and closer it sneaked, its slit-like nostrils quivering hungrily, thick saliva sliding down its fangs as the scent of sweet flesh wafted over. Closer and closer, creeping up on the oblivious Alice, its size belied by its great stealth. Soon it was almost close enough to catch her if it lunged, pulling her into its savage embrace, sinking its teeth into her soft, pale skin... closer.

Alice wavered mid-step for a split second; she was sure she had heard something. She looked around, but the only thing close by was the fallen clock, its splintered body like the wreck of a small ship to the tiny girl. She listened closely, but could hear nothing; her ears must have been playing tricks on her. Still, the clock made her nervous, and she began to edge away from it and make for the door: a move which saved her life. With an inhuman shriek of triumph, the Jabberwock launched itself out from behind its cover, its arms spread wide to snatch Alice up to its gaping mouth... but it was a fraction of a second too late, and the girl screamed as talons sliced the air centimetres from her face. Staggering away from the predator, she screamed again, holding her arms in front of her face to block a modicum of the horrific beast from view. Doused in moonlight, it was worse, far worse, than it had been depicted in the book. No mere illustration could show the way its scaly body rippled violently, the way its tail whipped back and forth with a sharp crack of parting air, the sound of steadily-dripping saliva as it oozed out of the cavernous maw that desired her flesh.

Exposed, the Jabberwock halted, torn between pursuing its prey or giving up now that the advantage of surprise was lost. The girl was running away as fast as she could towards the door, but she smelled so fresh, so delicious... Another screech echoed around the room as the Jabberwock let out its hunting cry, and Alice's mind became a panicked haze as she hurtled towards the door, knowing that death was seconds away but unwilling to give in to her fate. Her breathing came in tortured gasps, her footfalls were heavy, her vision flitted with imaginary shadows and ghouls, but nothing could quite blot out the snuffling sound that pursued her, the rustle of its wings and the slight hissing that leaked from its hungry throat. Then, inevitably in her panic, Alice felt her foot snag on a tangled piece of carpet beneath her, and there was a split second of inertia before she crashed to the ground, winded completely and clutching her stomach. She was helpless, a fact that the terrible Jabberwock knew all too well as it crept towards her, keening triumphantly, a fact that she couldn't even deny to herself as she drew in deep, ragged breaths. Her mind was a whirl of panic, a pitiful voice whining in the back of her consciousness that begged for the end to be fast, and she was paralysed by terror as the Jabberwock reared above her in all of its unnatural glory. Her hands scrabbled around for something, anything to protect her, and she recoiled as for the second time that night she cut her hand.

Glancing over, trying to ignore the monstrous apparition that was closing in on her, she saw that her hand had found a shard of the wall mirror, as long as her arm in her present state. A strange calmness came over her and time seemed to slow down as the predator drew nearer; as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, and indeed it had been her plan all along, she snatched up the slice of mirror and stabbed at her attacker as if she wielded a glass sword. The Jabberwock drew back with an ear-splitting scream of pain, the shard embedded in its chest, but Alice wasn't there to see the look of anguish on its face; she was sprinting for the door, trying her best to ignore her sliced-open palms, the prospect of escape burned firmly into her mind. Racing into the hall, she skidded around a corner as the Jabberwock lurched after her, wounded and bloody but far from dead. The shard was sticking out of its chest at an angle, most of it having been snapped off in the beast's convulsions, but it was chasing her as though it didn't even notice in its ravenous anger.

She turned another corner, fairly flying over the darkened carpet, and came to the top of the stairs – in her current predicament, it was like trying to climb down the ridged side of a ziggurat, but she refused to stop, jumping down each step and trying to ignore her protesting muscles and bones after every impact. The Jabberwock was following her down, gliding over the steps on its clumsy wings, its hands outstretched as it screamed with rage and hatred. Only a few more steps to go... The monster was swooping in for the kill, pulling its wings in close for a dive, determined to tear Alice down with it... She had made the bottom step, and the open front door was just ahead... The only sounds now were her own heavy breathing and the continual shrieks of the Jabberwock, her own footfalls muffled as she hared towards the open door like a girl possessed, terror lending her speed that she would never be able to match in normal circumstances. She chanced a look behind as she reached the door frame, and the Jabberwock loomed out of the darkness like a monstrous owl, its taloned hands outstretched and its eyes bulging with loathing, but a second later she was out of the house, dashing across the stone front porch and leaping down the front steps onto the gravel pathway until she could run no more.

Shivering with fear and the sudden cold of the night air, Alice heard the cry of the frustrated Jabberwock echo around the gardens, a horrifying bellow of anger that slowly dwindled to silence. She shut her eyes and sprawled on the rocky floor, trying to control her breathing and sucking at her bloodied palms as her limbs cried out for rest. 'It's over,' she thought weakly to herself, 'It has to be. I've escaped that terrible Looking-Glass House; when I open my eyes I'll be back home, as good as new, and Dinah and the kittens will be waiting for me,'. However, even before she could open her eyes, her body seemed to grow more and more pained, as if the chase had taxed it beyond its endurance. She couldn't stop herself crying out with agony and fear combined; it was that sensation again, that horrible sensation of warping and shifting and... She forced her eyes open and found that her body had grown back to its normal size, and she was still in the Looking-Glass Garden, and she couldn't stop herself sobbing with anguish at the whole experience. "At... At least I'm back to normal again," she said to herself, more to perk her spirits up than anything else; the garden was eerily quiet. Not a bird sang, not a leaf shook, and no breeze wafted past to disturb the bitter cold.

Drawing her pyjamas in tighter around her, she shivered more violently than before, but the sound of scrabbling at the door sped up her decision to move on as quickly as she could. Eventually she settled on a stone bench overlooking some quite bizarre and horrible flowers; the main bed was tangled with thick, thorny brambles, and the flowers that managed to rise above this had a strange air about them. She could almost picture faces on some of them, if she squinted, and the hedge behind it was a strictly-carved, deep black barrier that brought to mind a fortress's walls. "What am I to do now?" she said despondently; she had torn the sleeves of her bedclothes to provide bandages for her hands, but the pain that lanced through them was just as bad as ever.

"What are you to do now?" a voice repeated calmly, echoing out of the night seemingly from nowhere.

"I suppose we can answer that, one way or another," a second voice continued, and a sharp volley of spiteful giggles followed. Alice looked around feverishly, but could see nobody.

"Over here, little girl," a rasping voice piped up, and the flowerbed in front of her rustled slightly. She moved in closer – although not too close, after her previous experiences with the denizens of this strange land – and gazed amongst the foliage for whoever was speaking. "That's right, just a little closer," the voice continued soothingly, but Alice stayed put.

"Not until you show yourselves," she said firmly, and there was silence for a second before another voice spoke up.

"She's a clever one, yes, very clever indeed,"

"Not much in the way of stems, though. A shame, really," another concurred.

"What _are_ you talking about?" Alice asked impatiently.

"Why, you, of course. My dear," a matronly voice said, and she was shocked to see that one of the disturbing roses was grinning at her. "We were just saying how skinny and weak your stems look,"

"My arms and legs are quite alright," Alice replied with annoyance, although she wasn't quite telling the truth – her whole body ached just standing up the way she was. "In far better condition than yours, at any rate," she gestured towards the strangling thorns, and was shaken by another gale of giggles.

"She thinks she knows better than us! Why, I doubt there's a brain in that tiny head of hers!" a purple flower said in a nasal voice.

"There must be, mustn't there?" the rasping voice asked doubtfully, shaking the brambles uncomfortably. "I do so love brains..." Alice didn't quite know what to make of this statement, and so ignored it.

"I have never met talking flowers before. And, based on this conversation, I don't see why you can talk. All you say is utter silliness," she said sharply, stepping forwards in her anger to berate the annoying plants.

"Why can we talk? That one's an easy riddle to solve, m'dear," the rose said grandly. "To draw succulent morsels like you in, of course. My, my, perhaps I was wrong about those stems after all..." She licked her lips obscenely as the thorny brambles made their move, lashing outwards like lariats and gripping Alice around the legs and arms, tugging her closer and closer as the rest of the plants gathered to the feast. Their strange faces had disappeared now, to be replaced by hungry maws, their leaves and roots squabbling with one another to get the choicest cuts of Alice. The thorns dug deeply into her skin and she wailed with pain, trying to wrench herself free, but with every inch she gained the inexorable plant drew her in two.

"No! No!" she screamed, fighting tooth and nail to free herself.

"Yeeeeessssss..." the plants hissed as one, whipping themselves into a feeding frenzy as the first drops of Alice's blood spattered amongst them. Before the last of the brambles could wrap around her and drag her into their earthy embrace, there was a flash of silver, and an axe swept through half of them in a single stroke. The plants shrieked as one with pain and annoyance, and the brambles struggled more desperately to hold their prey, but the axe fell again and again with fleshy thuds, a hard, gauntleted hand dragging Alice away from the flowerbed and beating back the ravenous foliage.

"Thank you," she spluttered, her eyes full of tears once more as she plucked the thorns out of her pale skin, but her saviour made no reply. She looked up to see who had saved her life and breath left her in an instant. It was an oversized chess-piece, so oversized that it was almost taller than Alice herself, and it was clearly a queen judging by its impressively detailed regalia. An axe hung from her left hand, a spiked crown rose from her head, and her armour was covered in the heraldry of her royal house. She was completely red, from her grim face to her armoured toes, although a glossier shade than the blood that menacingly dripped from her weapon.

"Who are you, and why are you trespassing on my land?" the queen asked haughtily, drawing herself up to her full and impressive height.

"Your land? I'm sorry, your majesty," Alice replied – she had learnt that politeness was the best policy when dealing with axe-wielding queens – and she even curtseyed slightly, which seemed to improve the woman's temper slightly. "I have lost my way, and..."

"Your way? _Your_ way?" the queen bellowed, with such anger that Alice recoiled, cowering on her bench. "All ways are my way! I am the Red Queen!"

"Once again, your majesty, I apologise," Alice said quickly, "I merely meant that I was searching for a way out of here,"

"The only way out is death or victory," the queen replied enigmatically. "I would much rather the latter, but so far we have a stalemate,"

"I'm not sure I understand,"

"I wouldn't expect you to. The ways of war between Red and White are far beyond the comprehension of mere children. I lead my forces into battle, but we have yet to achieve a decisive victory. That is why I have saved your life,"

"M-My life? But what use can I be of to you? Your majesty?" she added quickly, trying not to betray the fear in her voice.

"We need another queen to break the deadlock, and I requisition you, for the good of the Red empire. You must reach the Eighth Square as quickly as possible; only then will you be endowed with the necessary power," Alice could only stutter in reply to this strange but firm pronouncement; the Red Queen had seized her quite tightly around the arm, and was leading her down the pathway with quick, measured steps. "First you will come to the steam train – beware the passengers if you place any value at all on your life. Take the train through to the Fourth Square, but avoid the Tweedles at all costs. The Fifth Square is marshland, and on the Sixth you may meet Humpty Dumpty, if fortune is in your favour. The Seventh Square can only bring danger, in my opinion, and it is better not to mention the Eighth at all," Alice tried to take this clipped advice in, but it was immensely difficult; not only did she barely understand a word of it, the landscape that they were walking through changed drastically every second. When she focused her gaze ahead – invariably leading to a corner around which she couldn't see – her peripheral vision went wild, seeming to speed by as if she were going at a hundred miles an hour. But when she turned her head to catch this strange phenomenon, it appeared that they were merely walking on the spot, not moving one little bit. The only thing she could think of doing was closing her eyes tight shut, but the second she did so, the Red Queen shook her violently. "Wake up, girl!" she barked, and Alice whimpered to show that she was listening. "We're here. Perhaps I shall see you again, when you swing the tide of battle in our favour,"

"But I... I don't want to fight anyone..." Alice said pathetically, hanging her head until the Queen shook her again, lifting her chin up to glare into her wide eyes.

"You will be a queen, and you will fight, or you will die on the way!" she shouted. "There is no in-between! Now go!" She shoved Alice away, and she immediately crashed into someone.

"I'm sorry!" she cried, whipping around to apologise, but the man she faced made her jump back with horror. He was dressed in a station guard's uniform, or a strange tattered semblance thereof; in one gnarled hand he held a multicoloured flag, decorated with red and white chess pieces in bloody warfare, and with the other hand he raised his cap slightly so he could get a better look at Alice. His face was twisted and weathered, with a long grey beard and wild eyes. His broken teeth grimaced crazily from his lips, and saliva oozed from between them.

"Tickets, please!" he hissed, advancing on Alice with strange menace; his beady eyes seemed to bore into hers, staring out from their sunken sockets like a crab hiding in a crevice.

"I'm afraid I don't have one," she admitted shakily, and the guard stopped, stunned.

"Don't have one? Well, then, take one," he said with surprising mellowness, holding out a worn piece of paper with the word 'Ticket' stamped upon it. The second she accepted it, however, he snatched it back gleefully. "Aha! Your ticket! Now, get on the train, we'll be leavin' in seconds," Grabbing her by the arm, he fairly hurled her through the door, where she landed on the floor of the train with a thump. There was a shrill blast of steam from ahead, and the whole train vibrated and clanked worryingly before lurching forwards, stopping, then lurching again, over and over as if it were a caterpillar wriggling across the track. Alice was battered from pillar to post, slamming against the walls and door as the station guard's crazy cackles echoed around the rattling carriages horribly. Eventually, she managed to get a hold on one of the door handles and, forgetting the Red Queen's ominous advice, hurled herself into a room full of other passengers. Throwing herself gratefully onto a soft seat, she clutched her stomach queasily as the train continued its stop-start journey, before suddenly launching into such a high speed that the rails creaked underneath them. This, however, provided a degree of stability, enough in any case for Alice to recover from her sickness and look around the cabin she had entered. Sitting lazily opposite her was what looked like a mixture of man and insect; his head was beetle-like, with sly eyes and a decidedly human grin, whilst his stick-thin, shiny black body was dressed in a fine suit – albeit blood-spattered in parts. The reason for this seemed to be the three severed heads that occupied the remainder of the seats – a horse's, a goat's and what Alice supposed was a mummified man's, tightly bound in paper. They were all leaking their fluids down the leather seats, and it was pooling on the floor around Alice's bare ankles; she pulled her feet up onto her seat in disgust.

"Good day. I hope you are enjoying your trip?" the beetle-man asked politely. Before Alice could respond negatively, he burst into a fit of maniacal laughter. "Trip! Don't you see, little girl? What wordplay, what genius... trip! You tripped in here, and you're on a trip to who knows where! Genius..." his laughter gradually subsided, his clawed hands slowly stopping their wild, humoured beating of his immediate surroundings as he subsided back into silence.

"I am not enjoying myself at all, sir. Are you?" Alice said, prepared for a scornful reply if he said he was; for who could possibly enjoy such a nauseous journey, with only bloody viscera for company?

"Ewe?" he said blithely. "Sorry. The closest I have is the goat," He grabbed the goat's head and shoved his hand up its neck, flexing its jaws open and shut like a grotesque hand puppet. "Sorry, little girl. I have no time to talk; I am trying to get ahead!" he said in a nasal voice, speaking from the corner of his mouth like a ventriloquist and moving the goat's mouth in time with the words. Collapsing into helpless laughter at his own weak jokes, he tossed the goat's head aside without a second thought; it smashed a window, letting in icy air, and left a blood-slicked, jagged hole in its wake. Noticing Alice's expression, the beetle-man snatched up the horse's head instead. "I'm afraid I'm not feeling well today. Something to do with my throat," he rasped, controlling the horse like he did the goat, before falling silent.

His other hand was motioning Alice to speak, but she was quite hypnotised by the horse's rotting eyes, and couldn't muster a sound. "Hoarse! Now do you see? Hoarse and horse!" the beetle-man yelled angrily, tossing the severed head aside in a rage. Leaping to his feet, he lunged at Alice, grabbing her throat in his clawed fingers as his face twisted with malice. "Laugh! Laugh, or I'll pluck your vocal chords like a harp myself!" he screeched, but before he could act on his threat, the train sped up, throwing the two off their feet onto the bloodstained floor. Rolling away from Alice with the momentum of the train, the beetle-man crashed into other door, falling out of the carriage entirely; he landed beneath the squealing wheels and exploded in a spray of yellowish gore. Alice poked her head out of the hole made by the goat's departure, wondering what had caused this sudden increase in speed, and saw that another, bigger train was speeding down towards them, on the same track. Panic buzzed through her like a swarm of hornets, deep within her stomach; the train was doomed, she was doomed, they stood no chance against this behemoth. Her only option was to jump out of the train entirely, a prospect which made her stomach contract... Dashing across the carriage, she flung open the window, and her breath immediately left her as a cruel blast of wind snatched it callously away. Coughing, she was able to weakly climb halfway out before the two trains collided with earth-shattering force. She had the sensation of flying though the air for several seconds, before feeling a terrible impact and blacking out completely.

Consciousness came back slowly, and painfully. Her surroundings dimmed and faded more than once as she slowly woke up, her eyelids fluttering like captured moths as her battered body protested against its maltreatment. Eventually, when she found herself awake for more than a few seconds, she opened her eyes and rose unsteadily into a sitting position, propping herself up against a nearby tree. Looking around, she found that she was in a forest of some sort, which reminded her of the place she had met the Duchess and her dreadful Cheshire Cat for the first time. However, there were several differences that made it an altogether less intimidating place. For one, the trees were thinner, and more widely spaced; for another, this allowed beams of golden sunlight to reach the leaf-strewn grass, illuminating motes of dust and pollen that floated through the air like tiny insects. The trees seemed to stretch for miles, and there was no sign of the train track or the crash. Just how far had she been thrown by the collision? Rubbing her sore head delicately, she looked around again.

All of a sudden, she felt a terrible sinking sensation; where was she? She had never visited here before, she was sure of it. And yet, why was she bothered? It was so perfect here, so warm and... and... what was that word? She could picture it in her head, and feel the sensation, but she couldn't quite recall the name that described it. Shrugging, she got to her feet. Her body didn't... _something_ anymore. Another word escaped her memory, like a fish slipping from a net and disappearing into the deepest ocean. All that mattered was that she was here. She couldn't remember why she was here, how she had gotten here, or even who she was. It was as though her identity was a faded recollection, an unimportant childhood memory that was lost in the mists of time. None of it mattered, she realised now. She could wander in this wondrous... _place_ forever, amongst the somethings, relishing the feel of some substance amongst her... her... Her thought trailed away to nothing as her mind began to unravel. Time passed, although she had no idea how much; it felt both like an eternity and the passage of a single second. Without even noticing, she became paler and paler, until she was as translucent as a ghost, and getting less and less substantial the whole time...

"My, my... who have we here?" said an amused voice, and Alice solidified suddenly, her trance broken.

"Wh-Who?" she said, her teeth chattering. The word meant something, of course, but to her it just seemed like a sound she had heard many years ago, just a strange vocalisation. As for the rest of what it said, she couldn't even recall if it had spoken anything else.

"A little girl, lost in the Forest of Forgetfulness... Dear me. I'm quite forgetting myself, if you'll excuse the joke. You must be in need of an... an..." the creature stopped, frowning, before finding the word he was looking for. "An _escort_ out of this terrible place. Come on, grab hold," Alice stumbled over to the thing – which she couldn't describe, having no words to do so – and wrapped her arms around its neck, more out of instinct than understanding. "You're lucky I found you in time. You might have faded away, into a forgotten dream. A terrible fate. Or else, your heart might have forgotten to beat. Luckily for you, my will is stronger... although, I myself cannot remember how I even got here!" it laughed airily, but Alice couldn't comprehend a word it was saying, so she didn't respond. It guided her through the trees, its very presence lending her a tether to existence, and several seconds later Alice felt pain rush through her.

"Oh no... Now I'm hurting again... why did you take me away from that beautiful place?" she moaned, rubbing her blonde head again ruefully, and there was a split-second where the full weight of her experience crashed upon her, drowning her mind in a flood of memories. She reeled away from the animal, struck dumb as a lifetime's experience and learning overloaded her all at once, and it was a few long seconds before she regained control of herself. "Alice," she said, then repeated it letter by letter. "A-l-i-c-e. That's my name! That's who I am! I'm Alice, and I was on a train, then in a forest, and you... oh!" The creature who had saved her was a huge stag, its body heaving with muscle, its deep black hair shaggy and matted. Red eyes blazed from dark sockets as it shook its head back and forth, sharp teeth bared in a grimace, and antlers twisted from its skull like dead, bleached branches. They were still in a forest, but it was subtly different; the aura of the place was more natural, with the chirping of birds and the whistle of the breeze, and the passage of time could be sensed with more clarity.

"I... I am a stag... I recall it now, I recall it all..." it said softly, before jumping slightly at the sight of Alice. "And you... you are a human..."

"Yes," Alice said in a small voice, backing away as the stag rose to its full height.

"A decidedly small human... defenceless, some might say..." the stag said, menace underlying its tone as it slowly advanced. "That walk in the forest has quite worked up my appetite. You will help sate me, Alice..." With a snarl of hunger, the stag galloped towards her, its head lowered to gore her on its antlers. Alice moaned with new horror and ran away as fast as she could, stumbling over roots and slipping on dew-soaked grass, and every second of the chase was broken with the sharp, ravenous snorts of the stag, the thundering of its hooves as it squeezed between tree trunks after her. "Come back here! You cannot escape, Alice... wouldn't a quick death be preferable to wandering back into that awful forest and becoming less than alive, less even than dead... to just fade from existence completely..." The words of the monstrous creature echoed eerily through the forest behind Alice as she ran, but she barely took any in, her mind muddled with panic. Every time she thought she was about to collapse, she heard the snapping of teeth inches behind her, and new, desperate strength pushed her agonised legs onwards.

Suddenly, she didn't know whether she was running from the stag in the forest, or fleeing across the carpet from the Jabberwock, or even lurching across the train carriage, as confusion clouded her every desperate thought. Inevitably, amongst the madness her foot snagged on a root, and she fell forwards hard. With a furious bellow, the stag hurtled over her small, prone form; she could smell its fetid breath and the stench from its night-coloured pelt as it careered over her, and the excited snorting of its damp nostrils. Before it could wheel around and stab or crush her, with a sickening crunch it slammed heavily into a thick-trunked tree. When, after several seconds, she wasn't dead, Alice chanced a look up. The stag's antlers were lodged in the wood, and it was stuck in place, thrashing around angrily but otherwise helpless. Pushing herself up, Alice took a deep gasp of breath before fleeing further into the forest, looking back every chance she could at the trapped creature as it gouged at the bark angrily to check that it wasn't racing after her with her blood on its mind; eventually, it faded into the distance, and silence slowly fell again until she was all alone once more.

She didn't stop running, however, until she felt that she couldn't take another step, or risk collapsing. Kneeling on all fours, she filled her lungs with the sweet-scented, warm air of the forest, coughing as pollen tickled her throat, her ears ever alert for the slightest snort, the slightest hoof-beat, the slightest warning that death was a second away. When she eventually felt able to get up again, she rose to her feet shakily, wondering where on earth she was going to go now. The Red Queen had said all sorts about squares, and she knew she had to head for the eighth, but how to get there was quite beyond her. She brushed a lock of pale blonde hair from her eye, her breathing returning to a semblance of its normal rhythm at last, and looked around.

She jumped slightly as she realised that she wasn't all alone like she had believed. Standing in a beam of purest sunlight was a girl... or was it a statue of a girl? She was seemingly frozen in the act of praying, her eyes raised hopefully to the heavens, and a strange half-smile was on her face. The most unnerving thing about her was that she was very similar to Alice in many ways, except that she was slightly taller and her breasts were larger. It was as if she was looking at an older version of herself, but one tainted with the usual surreal nature of her Nightmareland. Alice moved closer to this strange apparition and stroked it experimentally on the face, her hands leaving a smear of blood behind them as they lightly caressed its white cheek. Who had crafted it, she wondered. Whoever it was, they were a great talent. Her gaze leaving the statue in search of its sculptor, she stifled a cry as she realised there was another one, close by, in exactly the same position! As her heartbeat slowed again, she realised that it was a perfect duplicate of the first, down to every detail, and its presence was doubly unnerving.

Turning back to the first, she couldn't stop herself letting out a small shriek of shock; its face has changed! She was looking down at Alice now, her smile wider and more menacing, but she was so unmoving that it was as if she had been carved in that position. Backing away, not taking her wide eyes of the statue, she crashed into the second... and couldn't stop herself looking around at it, to see its arms outstretched to grab her and its gaze lancing her. Heart-piercing shock compounded as she whipped around to see that the first had advanced slightly, deserting its perfect posture. Back and forth she looked, back and forth, determined to catch them out, and each time she did the statues changed and froze again before she could spot them. They closed in on her like stop-motion puppets, trapping her between them, and she crumpled to the floor and screamed with fear, closing her eyes tight against the encroaching menace. Seconds passed, but nothing happened. No arms grabbed at her, no legs kicked her. As her tearful eyes opened a crack, she felt a soft grip on her wrists, and she was pulled to her feet. The two Alices were moving naturally now, statues no more, and they were smiling happily as their hands enfolded hers.

"Calm down. There's no need to worry anymore. We won't hurt you," one of them whispered, pulling her into a close hug.

"We are your friends," the second affirmed with a soft smile. "We are the Tweedles. We love you," Alice broke free of the first's grip, but tumbled into the arms of the second immediately. "See? We're here for you, Alice. We love you," The last three words were said by both at once, in an endearing but strangely spine-chilling tone of complete seriousness; and still their voices remained soft and smooth.

"I... thank you," Alice replied awkwardly. "But I must be going. I have people to see, you see..." The Tweedles giggled lightly together, sounding like the tinkling of china bells, and inexplicably it sent a wave of fear through her.

"People to see, you see," they said together. "You're funny. We love you,"

"I love you too," she replied, and their faces softened even further; the sight was disturbing, as if she was looking upon something shameful, something that should be kept private.

"She loves us, she loves us!" they cried happily, and grabbed one of Alice's hands each, dancing in a circle and repeating their mantra over and over again; "She loves us, she loves us!" Alice couldn't stop herself being drawn into their game, their childish delight relaxing her guard so much that soon she was dancing just as enthusiastically as her companions, and shouting the words just as loudly. "She loves us, she loves us!" As they whirled on the spot, time seemed to pass more quickly than usual, and with each revolution the dancers got more and more filled with excitement and revelry. Alice's mind seemed to sink into a happy blur as they span around and around, the same three words ringing through the forest one after the other, and she barely felt aware of her body or self anymore. Suddenly, as smoothly as if it were part of the dance itself, she found herself in the loving embrace of one of them, her lips meeting theirs in a passionate kiss... gasping, she drew away, breaking free of the Tweedle's grip as her heart pounded in her ears. What had just happened? And why? As she stumbled backwards, gazing at the softly smiling Tweedle warily, she crashed into the second, who clutched her even tighter, running a pattern of delicate kisses up her smooth neck.

"Let go of me!" she cried fearfully, pushing the girl away as hard as she could, but it was not enough to topple her; the two circled her like predators, closer and closer, until their hands were joining and they formed a tight ring around the younger Alice playfully.

"But you said you loved us," they said in unison, skipping around Alice gracefully. "You promised us. Show us how much you love us, Alice. Wont you show us? Please?"

"I didn't promise a thing," Alice said sharply, trying to regain her equilibrium even as the familiar claws of subtle panic scratched deep within her. "I said I had to go... I have to make it to the Eighth Square..."

"But Alice, we need you," the first said mournfully, tears clustering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

"We love you," they said together, and once more Alice found herself trapped in an embrace; before she knew it, the two of them were toppling backwards, and she landed on something warm and soft. More arms slid up her stomach as the first Tweedle's lips sought hers; she was sandwiched between them, and she couldn't do anything to defend herself, their grip was too strong. She felt her pyjama shirt being pushed up by the Tweedle beneath her, baring her stomach as the one atop her kissed her slender neck daintily with lips so cold they made her shiver. "We love you, Alice..." they said again, their voices husky, and she could hear their breathing deepen with excitement. Slender fingers began tugging at her pyjama bottoms persistently and gently massaging her chest, the bottom Tweedle kissing everything in reach. The top had eyes only for Alice's soft lips, pinning the girl in place with a deep and passionate kiss. Before she knew it, both Tweedles were completely unclothed, their warm, naked bodies pushing at hers lustfully from above and below as their fingers and lips became more and more insistent. Feeling a thrill of horror as a hand slid up between her legs, she exerted all the strength she could and threw the top Tweedle away.

"Get off me! Get away from me!" she cried, crossing her arms over her chest protectively as she backed away from the naked duplicates. They exchanged a surprised look, before glancing at Alice with hurt expressions.

"But Alice, we love you..." they said, but Alice cut across them with a scream of rage.

"Well I don't love you! You can have each other for all I care!" she cried, her voice echoing around the trees, and before the Tweedles could reply, a harsh shriek came from above. Forgetting herself for a moment, Alice looked around; what was that? Had she alerted something to her presence? Her question was soon answered in the most horrific way imaginable, as with a mighty gust of fetid air and another chilling screech, a gigantic bird fell from the sky like a stone. Cowering in fear, Alice watched as the monstrous black crow, the size of a horse, descended upon the two girls with a snap of its beak and a flap of its terrible wings. Their high-pitched screams ripped through Alice as she curled up at the base of a tree, hapless to tear her gaze away as the crow stabbed left and right with terrible precision, slashing the Tweedles open with beak and claws in its implacable quest for flesh. They ran back and forth helplessly, crashing into one another more than once, but no matter where they went the crow was ready and waiting. Finally, bloodied and dying, they staggered over to one another as the crow looked on patiently, and collapsed in each other's arms with a final kiss, before their fading eyes flicked up to Alice. They tried to crawl towards her, but they were far too badly wounded to make it more than a few centimetres over the forest floor. Finding themselves incapable of any greater movement despite all of their struggles, they extended a shaking, bloodstained hand each, as if trying to painstakingly reach out for her and pull her into their embrace, before three words escaped their lips;

"We... love... you..." The final word ended in a hiss as they breathed their last, and Alice could barely tear herself away from their mournful gaze to flee as the crow began to feed. The Tweedles had been horrible creatures, but did they really deserve such an end? She remembered their roving hands with sudden, awful clarity, and shiver ran through her; yes, she thought, they deserved everything they got. As she struggled onwards, she noticed that the trees were beginning to thin out, and the ground began to give under her feet; she was entering muddy swampland. Tufts of grass rose up on hillocks above pools of icy water, wreathed in a cloak of thin mist, and Alice was forced to jump between soggy islands to progress any further – a process made considerably more dangerous by the fact that the mud she landed on was slick and slippery, giving her little to no purchase.

By the time she finally spotted a sign of civilisation, she was stained with mud almost from head to foot, and her clothes were soaking and clinging to her like frigid fingers after one of her leaps went wrong and she landed in a pool. Her feet felt like blocks of ice and her shins were completely numb from their exposure to the water. Marsh-flies were buzzing around her with interest, crawling on whatever exposed flesh they could find, searching for something to suck up or a nice, warm place to lay their cluster of eggs. Every few steps she had to bat them away from her eyes, nose and mouth, as the increasingly inquisitive insects swarmed around her like a black cloud. The one hint of safety she spotted was a small, crooked house, raised above the swamp on spindly stilts. Tethered to one of the stilts was a small boat, and a rope-ladder led up to the damp wooden door in the side of the elevated shack. Deciding that nothing could be worse than the predicament she was already in, she began to climb the ladder carefully, willing its frayed ropes and rotten rungs not to snap under her weight; when she finally reached the door, she found it was open, but knocked gently before entering.

"You may enter," a cracked, elderly voice called, and she obeyed cautiously. Inside the shack seemed to be a junk shop of some sort, full of shelves completely crammed with all sorts of items, from stuffed animals to letter-openers to eggs. Through the gloom, she could see what looked like a goat-headed man sitting at the counter; his neck was soaked in blood, his eyes rotten and teeth disjointed. His crooked, spindly hands tapped the desk slowly, beating out a rhythm with his cracked fingernails as he looked at Alice in a decidedly cross-eyed manner; mostly this was due to one of his eyes dangling half out of its socket. "I see you have come at last,"

"You were expecting me?" Alice asked, astonished.

"Of course. Every week, a servant is sent to row me around the swamp,"

"A servant? Well, I am certainly not one of those... and why on earth would you need to row around this terrible place, anyway?"

"It helps keep my prices low, you see. If my prices rise, everyone gets irritable, and there is inevitably bloodshed. Why, I found out myself only yesterday, when my head was ripped off. Fortunately, I found it again today, so no harm done,"

"And how does rowing keep your prices down?"

"Never mind the intricacies, dear. Just row me and I won't be forced to harm you in any way," Suddenly, the items on the walls began to change; she was now surrounded by grotesquely distorted puppets, bloodstained weapons, burning torches and curse-inscribed scrolls, which dripped from every shelf like a sickening ooze, baldly displaying their blasphemous words for everyone to see.

"I... I suppose... is the Sixth Square on the way?" Alice asked hopelessly as the goat-man chivvied her out the door and down the rope ladder.

"Which way? All ways are the Red Queen's way, you know. Except, of course, for those owned by the White Queen and her soldiers," he replied, creakily getting into the bobbing boat and beckoning Alice to do the same. "The oars are there. Do be quick, wont you? This cold is no good for my bones," He pulled back his robes to reveal a chest that was open to the world; a small, vein-lined black heart pulsed frantically within, suspended behind his bleached, exposed ribs, which were like the bars of a cage. Alice was fascinated and horrified in equal measure by the hypnotising beat of the heart, which seemed to be the same rhythm the goat-man was tapping on the wooden desk... her reverie ended as her companion grabbed a handful of her hair, his long, dirty nails scratching her scalp. "I said... _row_," he hissed quietly, playing with a silver knife close to Alice's throat, bending her head backwards and watching the arteries' pulsing quicken as fear set her heart beating. Reluctantly, she grabbed the oars, and with an immense effort began to row the boat across the still lake, sending ripples out in every direction with every stroke.

Satisfied, the goat-man released her, and began his rhythmic tapping on the side of the boat absent-mindedly. "Watch out for the crabs, by the way. Nasty things," he spoke up nonchalantly after a while, and at that second, Alice felt something grab her oar. Hoping that it was only caught in water weed, she tugged at it, but each tug of hers was matched by one beneath the water. Eventually she lost her temper, and pulled at the oar with all of her might, bracing her feet against the side of the boat and letting out a little shriek of exertion. The oar stayed where it was for a moment, until the answering pull yanked her off the boat, and she fell with a heart-stopping splash into the numbing waters of the lake. Thrashing around impossibly slowly in the greenish depths, she saw a huge claw swish towards her, its razor edges open and ready to slice her in half. Kicking backwards as hard as she could, she just avoided the strike, but she could still see a faint, dark shape in the water around her. Wherever she went, it was always one step ahead of her, teasing her with its smooth underwater agility, and fear welled up in her throat like the breath that longed to escape. She could see no other options; she was doomed.

All of a sudden, as the black shape circled gradually closer, she felt a great pain on the top of her head, and her eyes watered with agony; glancing up, she could see the half-submerged oar above her. Clutching at it desperately, she dragged herself upwards and crawled over the side of the boat, dripping wet and gasping between terrified tears. "You survived, then," the goat-man said, sounding unimpressed. "Keep rowing. I can't have myself a lazy servant," She didn't deign him with a reply, but shot him a glance of loathing before tentatively beginning her rowing again; luckily, this time, no horror of the deep contested her. The boat continued its crawl across the misty lake, Alice's arms aching with the exertion of using the oar, until up ahead she spotted a beautiful patch of what appeared to be reeds.

"What pretty reeds... I suppose we can stop for a while, to examine them more closely?"

"Suppose what you want. I won't stop you," the goat-man snapped rudely, so she ignored him and paddled closer. The reeds were tall and verdant, looking almost out of place in the morbid swamp, and shaded a stunning green, and she felt like picking some of them to take her mind off the recent horrors she had been subjected to. It was calming to think that such a simple act could help her relax, and soon she was almost at full spirits again, humming merrily as she snapped each stem and piled them on the boat. However, as she tugged at a particularly stubborn one, her hand rose above the surface with more than she had expected. Myriad small suckers were attached to her hand, trailing off into the lake like monstrous scarlet water-weed... scarlet, she soon realised, from her own blood! Before she could wrench her hand away, more and more suckers latched on, creeping up her arm and pulsing with redness, making Alice feel slightly lightheaded. She struggled against the tentacles as hard as she could, snapping stems with her free fingers, but for every one she destroyed two more lurched up from the depths.

"Help! Help me!" she cried, but the goat-man was watching her as if viewing a sporadically interesting slideshow, still tapping out his rhythm. Eventually she actually snatched the dagger from his hand and began hacking at the bloodsuckers desperately, ripping them off her arm and stabbing them until they retreated back into the frigid lake, their blood tithe denied. "Why... why didn't you help?" she whimpered, sprawling weakly in the boat as the goat-man took back his knife.

"Why should I? You're disposable, after all. Better you than me," Shaking her head at his vile attitude, she pulled up her sleeve, and moaned as she saw dozens of sucker-scars running all across her arm and hand. "I suppose you won't be able to row with an arm like that. Let me help," the goat-man said unexpectedly, pulling her arm roughly in front of his eyes. "Hmm... this should do the trick," He plucked one of his eyes out of its socket, crushing it in his hand, and dripped the foul, green-grey liquid up and down Alice's arm, making her gag with its awful stench. Within seconds it began to burn like virulent acid, and with a wail of agony she thrust her arm into the water, scrubbing it off as best she could. When she pulled it back, expecting it to be worse than ever, she found that in fact her arm had healed completely.

"Well... thank you. Even if it wasn't a particularly pleasant cure," she said grudgingly, and the goat-man grinned.

"Nice, strong arms we need to row, don't we?" he cackled, grabbing Alice's arm again and sniffing it slowly. "Oh, yes. Big and strong. Row on, then, girl. And mind you don't die, I'd hate to have to row myself the remaining distance," Muttering non-too-quietly at his rudeness, Alice reluctantly began to row again, and after a while the goat-man's hut came into view again. 'Thank goodness. Now perhaps I can finally leave his company,' she thought to herself, and as the boat bumped against the shore, she leapt out eagerly. "I must be going, sir. I have places to be,"

"Well, won't you allow me to show my gratitude and have a drink? I won't keep you for long, you can rely on that," he said, his bloodied, empty socket seeming to wink at her as he beckoned up the ladder.

"I suppose... a drink might help calm my nerves, after all..." she mumbled, and reluctantly followed him back into his little shop. "I would like a glass of water, please,"

"If you wanted water, you should have stayed down there. Plenty of it," the goat-man snapped, before whipping round aggressively. He was holding his silver knife and grinning dementedly as he advanced on his prey. "As for myself, I shall sup your sweet blood... And I'll keep those strong little arms of yours, yes, they look so perfect..." Alice dodged the first swipe of his knife, but slammed against a shelf; she felt blood welling up at the back of her head, and dabbed the wound painfully, gritting her teeth. She was trapped now, against the wall, and the foul goat-man was drawing ever closer with his drooling grin and flashing knife. However, before he could make the killing stroke, both of them looked up; they had heard a noise on one of the higher shelves. One of the biggest eggs in the room was rocking back and forth like a child's toy, tapping against a huge, wooden treasure chest with increasing force, pushing it further and further off the shelf; with one last, monumental swing, it actually managed to dislodge it completely, and the heavy wooden object crashed to the floor, crushing the goat-man beneath its bulk with a crunch and a squirt of blood. Springing open from the force of landing, it scattered its contents across the floor; severed arms, most of them reduced to fleshless bones, doubtless harvested from former servants.

But Alice was more interested in the egg, which had settled back into place silently, and she began to climb the rickety shelves as best she could towards it; but every time it seemed within reach, several more shelves appeared to separate the two. A fierce wind began to blow around her as she climbed higher and higher, and snowflakes even danced in the air, freezing on her eyelashes and numbing her face, and after a particularly strong blizzard she found that she was no longer in the shop, but rather on the edge of a gaping chasm. The air was bitterly cold, and she pulled her pyjamas around her tighter, and she looked up and down the edge of the crevice to see the egg close by – except that now it was at least as big as her. Approaching it warily, she pressed her ear up against the shell, and felt warmth within. Snuggling up to it, the two shared their heat against the cold, and for a long time nothing else happened. It was so comfortable, Alice thought, to just cuddle this egg... all of her worries seemed to melt away from the warmth inside it. A sharp crack rent the howling wind; Alice peeked up to see that a great jagged gash had appeared in the shell, which was spreading outwards like a spider-web until it shattered into a dozen perfect shards. Unfolding from within was a rather tall, strangely feminine boy, several years older than her, and dressed in an immaculate suit. His face was thin and pallid, his hair white-blonde and his eyes had great purple bags beneath them, but he was smiling softly nonetheless.

"Thank you," he said, and wandered over to the edge of the abyss, sitting down and dangling his legs over happily.

"Th-Thank you? F-F-For w-what?" Alice said, her teeth chattering uncontrollably, and he smiled again, beckoning her over to sit beside him. She obeyed, and he wrapped his jacket around her protectively.

"For helping to incubate my egg. I couldn't have hatched without you,"

"Well, you helped me too," Alice pointed out, gazing down into the yawning void uncertainly. "You saved me from that horrible goat-man and warmed me up when I reached here,"

"I didn't want to see him claim an innocent victim. Because you are innocent in all of this, aren't you, Alice?" he looked at her almost pityingly, putting his arm around her against the cold. "Most people here are mad by choice. You stumbled here without knowing what you were doing. And I suppose one of the queens has sent you on a quest to break the deadlock between the kingdoms?"

"Yes," Alice complained. "I don't really know why. I'm no fighter or queen. I just want to go home,"

"If you don't know why you're doing this, then why _are_ you doing it? Do you have an obligation? Do you owe a debt to the queen?"

"No," Alice sniffled. "I just... she requisitioned me. And from that point, I have just been trying to survive. But you are the first agreeable person I have actually met, so thank you,"

"Agreeable... that word doesn't sit well here, I'm afraid. This world is disagreeable by its very nature. Hopes and dreams are turned against you, and your worst nightmares come to life. Everything you prize about yourself is warped, erased, or forgotten..." he sighed heavily, and he sounded so mournful that she put her head on his shoulder to show she was sympathetic. "Unfortunately, I believe the only way you might escape is to complete your quest and become a queen. But before you can receive the coveted crown, there are more obstacles to overcome. You will soon enter the main battle-fields of Red and White, the contested lands where the duelling kingdoms have fought for what seems like millennia,"

"What are they fighting for? Territory, I suppose..."

"That is probably more than they know themselves. They fight because they fight," he replied with another sad sigh. "But never mind. I'm here to help you now, Alice. I'll help you continue on your journey,"

"Really?" she asked. "But... can we not just stay up here forever? I don't want to fight..."

"You won't have to. Trust me," he said with a wistful smile. "But I can't delay you for too long. So I thank you for your company, Alice. It has been a true pleasure,"

"Wait... don't go..." Alice said, rising to her feet alongside him. "What will I do without you?"

"I'm not truly leaving you. I'm just helping you restore the balance between the kingdoms, instead of making one triumphant over the other,"

"But how will I do that?"

"You must become a third force. A mitigating factor that works truly for neither Red nor White. When you become a queen, you may be able to negotiate terms of peace between each faction, before things get even worse," he grimaced slightly. "This is your best chance to conquer your fears, Alice. To conquer your nightmares. But nothing can come without sacrifice, especially not peace. So I will carry out my duty. Just let it be known that it was wonderful to know you, Alice, even for such a short time," He gripped Alice by the hand and threw them both off the edge of the crevice, sending them hurtling into the abyss. Any screams that tried to escape Alice's throat were drowned out by the howling wind, and every time she tried to arrest her fall in any way, the boy squeezed her hand to reassure her that everything would be fine, even when her situation had never looked worse. Into the darkness they plunged. Their fall seemed to last for years, surrounded by blackness, but the expression on the boy's face was never anything but calming and, at times, happily resigned to his fate. A white light suddenly blazed from beneath them, and Alice squeezed her eyes shut against its glare; they seemed to be falling faster and faster, hurtling towards the light before suddenly landing with a loud, echoing crash.

Opening her eyes, Alice saw that she was on a grassy hill, overlooking a great battle-field filled with splashes of scarlet and lily-white as soldiers fought back and forth. Next to her, the boy had shattered into a thousand crystalline fragments, as though he had been nothing but a china doll. She tried to repair him, but her attempts were half-hearted, as deep inside she knew the futility of her actions. She couldn't stop herself shedding a tear for the kind boy, who she was sure had protected her from the deadly landing – and sacrificed his own life in the process. But he had done it for a reason, and it was down to her to make it to the Eighth Square. Steeling herself, she began to walk down the hill towards the battlefield (as she was quite sure that her path lay on the other side of it). The soldiers, so focused on butchering their opposites, largely ignored her, but even without their evil attentions she could only be horrified at the carnage. Body parts were scattered across the ground, along with armour and weapons, the only remnants of past bouts. Neither side was giving an inch against their foes, and neither seemed to be making much progress, for whenever a soldier fell, one of his foes was instantly slain at the same time, evening up the numbers. They fought with staggering ferocity, and each warrior appeared to be completely and utterly berserk as they threw themselves into the bloody fray recklessly.

As she dodged and crawled through the violent bloodshed, she noticed that up ahead, a battle of some importance seemed to be taking place. In the midst of the warriors fought a lion and a unicorn, two huge, magnificent beasts that struck Alice dumb with their obvious power. The lion was completely scarlet, although its mane was a darker shade, and the claws that sprouted from its huge paws were more akin to sickles. Teeth inches long were evident in its muzzle, as its quivering lips were pulled back across them in a savage snarl. Against this terrifying creature stood the unicorn; a haughty-faced creature of pure white, whose silvery tail lashed back and forth with annoyance and whose nostrils gushed steam. Its great spiral horn was completely red with blood, and had the arm of a Red soldier impaled upon it, and its hooves lashed back and forth with the strength and power of war-hammers. The fighting monsters were laced with wounds and bruises, but battled with even more ferocity than their soldiers, using horn, claws, teeth and hooves to deadly effect. Whenever the lion raked its claws down the unicorn's side, splitting its skin open like a ripe plum, it was in turn heavily impaled by its foe's horn, giving the unicorn the time it needed to recover. As they scuffled wildly, roars and neighing rang across the scene of battle, almost – but not quite – drowning out the terrible noises of metal hitting metal and corpses thumping to the ground. Suddenly, the lion's evil red eyes fell upon Alice, and it bounded over to her, putting her between the two of them.

"This is the supposed new queen," it gurgled through the blood in its throat. "I will battle you over her. Whoever wins has the honour of killing her," Alice gasped as the unicorn whinnied its assent, and she could only cower as the two titans closed in on each other with terrifying battle-cries. She rolled to the side as a hoof slammed to the floor, and started to crawl away until a swipe from the lion's tail batted her back into the centre of the duel. Their meaty bodies were slamming up against each other with full force, and she was always a second away from being crushed as they did everything in their power to slay the opposition. Claws nearly opened her side wide open on several occasions, just as the mistimed stab of a horn could have impaled her three frightening times. Legs kicked at her bodily, shoving her out of the way with impatience, before each of them remembered she was the prize and drew her back into the fray. She felt herself getting drenched in blood as the wounds became more and more severe; the lion's right eye was stabbed out by a horn, and the unicorn's left back leg had been dislocated and covered in lacerations by a powerful blow. Skin was torn, organs exposed and innards spilt in a horrifying battle of strength, one that Alice realised could only end in death for one or both.

And then came the drumming. At first it was a low beat, but it quickly became louder and louder, as if there were a thousand warriors battering a thousand snare drums relentlessly. Louder and louder it swelled, sometimes being drowned out by the sounds of battle, but always returning with fresh vigour a second later. The two monsters paused in their duel as the drumming came closer, and after a last venomous glare at one another they rejoined their respective forces, which were polarising into two separate seas of colour again. Alice was on the floor between the two armies, covering her ears against the drumming, until she was suddenly dealt a harsh kick. Looking up, she saw that the Red Queen was standing there, looking exceptionally furious. She felt herself being lifted to her feet and bodily brushed down by the imposing woman.

"You! I thought I told you to become a queen!" she bellowed.

"I am trying, your majesty," she said with wearied politeness. "This is the Seventh Square, is it not? So soon I shall be crowned," The queen thought long and hard about her statement, before offering a minute nod.

"Well, be off with you, then. I will shortly be duelling with the White Queen. Neither of us will win, and the battle will be over for another day. So? Begone!" she yelled, and Alice began to stumble away, but not before she caught sight of the White Queen herself; she was little more than a baby wrapped in a pure white shawl, although in one of her hands she wielded a mace. One of her soldiers rode forwards and respectably placed her in front of the Red Queen before retreating to his own army again. Shaking her head despondently, Alice made her way down the line of battle, hearing the clash of weapons echoing behind her as the so-called duel commenced. It was almost time for her to become queen... As this thought entered her head, a scarlet knight broke away from his army and thundered towards her, scooping her up off the ground and slamming her in the saddle behind him. The soldiers watched him abduct the girl and ride away across the plain in silence, despite Alice's cries, and whenever she tried to dismount his gauntleted hand grabbed her wrist in a grip of iron. Steam whooshed out of the nostrils of his horse-shaped helmet, and eyes like hot coals burned from within; an axe hung lazily from his other hand, leaving the jet black horse to guide itself.

"Where are you taking me?" she whimpered.

"To the Eighth Square. Nobody said the journey would be easy," the knight replied, his thunderous voice echoing through his elaborate helmet metallically. "And it shall not. You will undergo great pain before..." He ended his sentence abruptly, and when no further words were forthcoming, Alice looked up. His head had been completely severed, and lay on the ground several metres behind, as the black horse slowed to a stop and began munching on grass. Trundling up to her on a pale stallion was a white knight, equally terrifying and just as battle-scarred as his enemy.

"Alice. It is my duty to transport you there. I will protect you!" the new arrival cried, wrenching her off the saddle and pulling her onto his own, although his voice was no less frightening than the red knight's. It seemed that she was going to be escorted whether she liked it or not. However, as they proceeded at a casual pace, Alice noticed that several arrow shafts, and what looked like half a broken spear, protruded from various points in the knight's body. "It was a difficult journey," he rasped, as if hearing her thoughts. "But it will be worth it. It is necessary. You must unite the kingdoms..." His voice trailed off into a gurgle and he slumped off his horse, driving the missiles deeper into his body. Alice jumped down to help him back up, but somehow he managed it on his own, leaning on his blood-flecked steed.

"You aren't... _him_, are you?" she asked tentatively, but she knew she was wrong even without a reply; the boy from the egg was taller, and didn't look strong enough to carry all of this armour and weaponry. Besides, he was dead, no more than a collection of cooling fragments to be scattered by the wind. However, the white knight didn't seem too far off himself.

"I... am... your... protector..." he managed to rasp eventually, his voice barely audible above the breeze, but he was able to pull himself back into the saddle along with his blonde-haired prize. He continued to repeat this to himself, over and over again, slower and slower and quieter and quieter, until it was a barely audible mumble, and he looked set to fall from the saddle again. The horse continued at its nonchalant pace until, from a set of trees either side of the road they were riding down, a band of red warriors appeared; a mixture of knights and pawns, little footmen with sharp spears and large shields.

"Give her to us!" one of the knights boomed, and Alice realised with horror that it was the decapitated one; he was holding his helmeted head under his arm, and it was looking directly at her! "She belongs to the Red empire!"

"Perhaps," the knight wheezed, swaying drunkenly as he unsheathed a huge sword, "But she will not go over easily. And you know this. Have at thee!" Sliding off his horse, the knight hobbled into battle, and Alice despaired, expecting to see him cut to pieces in moments. However, as soon as he got into the thick of the fighting, his movements became far more confident, and he swung his blade with deadly skill; several pawns were sliced in half on his first strike alone, before the knights could charge into combat. Instantly the fight became harder and bloodier, as the white knight was beset on all sides, his armour buckling under countless blows. And yet, with each wearied swing of his sword, another foe fell, and each time he looked about to collapse he found new strength within him to keep on fighting. Alice was reminded of herself, in a detached way; continuing on despite the madness, despite the pressure on her body to collapse and die, despite the threat of her own insanity looming around every corner. The fight came to a terrible conclusion when the white knight managed to unseat his final red foe, spearing him on the ground; but not before a blade was thrust neatly through his chest. "Must... protect..." he hissed to himself, his vision whirling as death called to him. But he would not, could not, listen to it. He had his job to do. He must guard Alice with his life, no matter what the cost. Alice supported him as best she could as he lurched back to his horse, his head lolling on his shoulders.

"Why are you doing this for me?" she asked, feeling tears build up again. "Just let me continue alone. You need a doctor," She knew he was far past a doctor's administrations, but he didn't know what else to say.

"No... Must... go... on..." He slung himself over his horse's back like a slain deer, and the steed continued to trot along, Alice stroking her knight's helmet softly and murmuring words of thanks and encouragement. Blood continued to ooze from the wound in his chest, but he lived for just long enough to spot a stream up ahead. "There... the Eighth... Square..." he said, before slipping off the horse and landing in a crumpled heap.

"No! Wake up! You can't leave me!" she shook him, but received no response. "I'm... I'm not safe yet! I need your help to reach the Eighth Square!" These desperate words provoked a reaction; like a corpse rising from the dead, the badly-wounded knight lumbered back to his feet, slinging his arm around Alice to hold himself upright. He was mumbling something, but she couldn't make it out, so she dragged him closer and closer to the stream. "Don't worry. We're almost there. We'll both be fine once we're across the stream," she made up comfortingly, and he grunted in response. When they were little more than a few metres away from it, however, more battle-cries echoed down the road. Alice turned and her stomach clenched; dozens, if not hundreds, of red warriors were charging down towards them, intent on capturing Alice and killing her protector. The white knight had apparently seen them too, for he left Alice's side, shambling over to the centre of the road and drawing his blade again.

"Go," he rasped. "I will... hold them... back..." he barely looked able to stand, but Alice knew where her priorities had to lie, so she gave the knight one last saddened wave of thanks before dashing across the stream, barely noticing the cool water in her haste to escape. Behind her, the sounds of clashing metal and screaming men rang across the landscape, but eventually dimmed, until she was alone in silence once again. All of a sudden, the world dimmed around her, as if day had turned straight into night without warning. The stars sprinkled across the sky above flickered in various different colours – predominantly red, she noticed – but the great white moon had transformed itself into an immense crown, which was speeding down towards her. She was rooted to the spot, unable to move, and gradually the huge white crown shrank, landed on her head delicately, and burned a deep scarlet. She cried out with pain as it fused itself painfully to her head, but with the pain came a feeling of unadulterated power, flowing through her veins and energising every cell of her body. Eventually, she fell unconscious as the agony reached its peak – or was it because her new power reached its rapturous climax? – and a different, all-too-familiar blackness swept over her beleaguered senses. When consciousness returned to her battered body, she saw that the Red Queen, the White Queen, and all of their bloodied soldiers, were waiting for her; once again, she lay between the two warring forces.

"Aha! You have become a queen at last!" the Red Queen said in a satisfied voice, whilst the White Queen merely bawled louder and louder, her screams echoing in Alice's ears until she cried,

"Quiet!" The White Queen's eyes widened in her pudgy face, but she obeyed, leaving silence to pervade the landscape once more. "I certainly feel as powerful as a queen," she continued; indeed, all the pain seemed to have left her body, and was replaced in its absence by sheer, unbridled energy.

"Then, you will help to destroy our enemies?" the Red Queen prompted eagerly, but Alice held up a hand to silence her.

"I won't destroy anyone," she said. "I am here to negotiate peace,"

"But that won't do!" the White Queen snapped; now she was tugging on Alice's leg impatiently, and she looked down to see what looked like a younger version of herself standing in a pure white crown. "Choose! You must choose! One of us must be elevated to Queen of all the world!" Now both queens were pulling at her, threatening to tear her in half as they wrenched her from side to side angrily, yelling "Choose!" louder and louder with each tug.

"Let me go!" Alice snapped; in her new state, she didn't fear a thing, least of all these two ineffectual creatures. A shock seemed to flow through her, and both queens recoiled with a cry of pain. "Neither Red nor White deserve supremacy. You're both bickering like pathetic children and killing one another over nothing. But now, I will give you peace!" Waving her hands, Alice released a fraction of her new power, and the Red and White forces seemed to flow together and coalesce, rising up into the air until they resembled nothing more than a blur of red-and-white paint. The two queens, the lion and the unicorn were sucked into the cataclysm, and seconds later, as if she had created a black hole, the very land itself flowed beneath her feet, being sucked up into this gigantic mess of creation like water down a plughole. The sun itself plummeted from the sky into the swirling pool, followed by the moons and stars, until Alice was left alone in the darkness. 'But what to do now?' she thought. Was there any way back from this? What had she unwittingly unleashed?

"You have unleashed yourself, Alice," a grave voice said, and Alice looked around to see the Red Queen standing beside her.

"You! I thought you were sucked into there," Alice replied, indicating the hovering ball of elemental force. "But no matter. I know you can't hurt me now. What is it you wanted?"

"I merely wanted to say that in time the Red empire will return. And it will be stronger than ever! Too strong for you, I'd imagine,"

"Nothing is too strong for me here anymore," Alice replied with a wistful sigh. "Look at what I did to this entire world,"

"But can you undo it? Are you powerful enough to reverse your own deeds?"

"I... I don't know,"

"I think you should try,"

"I _will_ try. But not because you told me so; because I wish to," she said dangerously, and the queen nodded her head in acceptance, a slight smirk on her face. Gathering her energies, Alice probed the mass she had created from her Nightmareland, and instantly everything was in chaos. Scenes from her past flashed all around her, from the tea party with the Mad Hatter to the flight from the Jabberwock, all remaining for a split-second before being replaced. Each scene began to flow into one, until she could no longer separate them; the only consistent element was the smug figure of the Red Queen, who was still standing next to her amongst the madness.

"Very good, Queen Alice. You already know that this is a mad world... and you just made it even madder," she said with a grin.

"You! It's all your fault!" Alice cried desperately, grabbing the queen by the throat and shaking. "You sent me on the quest! You told me to do this!"

"No!" the queen screamed, but it faded into a strained gurgle as Alice wrung her neck with hopeless ease. Darkness tainted the scene again as the gurgles of the queen continued, until they gradually died completely, making Alice snap awake with a start. She was sprawled on the edge of the bed, breathing frantically, and in her hands was clutched what was once her prized black kitten – except now it was dead, its neck broken.

"No... I... I didn't mean..." Alice began to sob, the realisation of what had happened crashing down upon her, and she cuddled the kitten close. As she bawled into the night, the kitten's soft fur absorbing her tears, she realised that although her latest horrific adventure was finally over, the nightmares never end.

**The End**


End file.
